Weekend Reading #71

Some longer or more involved reading:

• Greg Ellifritz has a new Weekend Knowledge Dump at his Active Response Training blog.  Some of the more notable items:
• Greg links to the most recent Range Master newsletter, which itself has several items of interest including the drill of the month, some comments about the importance of institutional memory (i.e., history of techniques), and why 00 buckshot is the best buckshot size for self defense.
• Speaking of institutional memory, Greg notes that over the course of his career, he has "seen how the events encountered in historical police gunfights have completely changed training doctrine and equipment use for both police and armed citizens alike," and indicates that he is going to start a series discussing some of the most important law enforcement shootings and events that changed police training, gear and doctrine. In that vein, he links to an article about the Norco Bank Robbery. 
• Something that we may need to think about is whether to get involved in the defense of a stranger. Greg links to a piece that raises the issue of whether we are best serving our family if we do so.
• A historical article on combat using a Bowie knife. In the 19th Century, there were schools of fencing across the United States that specialized in teaching how to use this weapon.
• A review of Federal Punch in .22 LR as a defensive round. Short take: "But the .22 LR Federal Punch round stands above [other .22 LR rounds] in terms of performance and delivers penetration approaching the levels of .22 Magnum or even .380 ACP."
• Lucky Gunner's testing of ballistics from varying barrel lengths shooting .300 BLK. The testing didn't show much gain from using a longer 16" barrel over the short barrels. Conclusion: "The real advantage of .300 Blackout is flexibility rather than raw ballistics. You get solid performance inside 150 yards, it’s easy to run in a suppressed, short barreled rifle, easy to switch between subsonic and supersonic ammo without changing anything else about the gun, and there’s no shortage of factory loads for either." 

• John Wilder muses about "The Passing Of The American Empire?" First he lays out his case that the United States really does preside over an empire. Then he provides thoughts on whether we are in an empire in decline and where we are at on that path. 
• A long video (41 min.) rather than a read: "How cartel drug smuggling actually works, according to a trafficker"--Business Insider. 
• "Jim Corbett: Eradicator of Man-Eating Tigers & Conservationist"--Shooting Times.  If you like reading about the great dangerous game hunters, you've probably heard of Jim Corbett. If not, Corbett was tasked with hunting man-eating tigers and leopards in colonial India and became a bit of hero. But he also championed preservation of the big cats, with a national park in India named after him. And his caliber of choice was the 7x57mm Mauser (aka, .275 Rigby)--something that would probably be considered underpowered for hunting the big cats in this era. This article give a short biography of his life.  A couple more articles about Corbett:
• "Edward James Corbett - Hunter Turned Conservationist"--Nature Safari India. 
• "Inside Hunter Jim Corbett’s Legendary Showdowns With History’s Scariest Man-Eating Big Cats"--All That Is Interesting. 
• "Inside the disappearance of Hollywood starlet Jean Spangler that saw Kirk Douglas dragged into investigation... after mysterious note bombshell"--Daily Mail. An interesting article if you like true crime stories:

    In Hollywood's golden age, Jean Spangler was just one of countless young starlets dreaming of a fairytale rise to fame.

    With her porcelain doll looks and willowy 5ft8 frame, along with a resume of film bit parts, Spangler seemed destined to make some kind of mark in Tinseltown - even if it was not with her name in lights alongside darlings Betty Grable or Olivia De Havilland. 

    Tragically, the fame Spangler would so desperately seek would not come from her onscreen appearances, but her haunting disappearance in 1949.

    All Spangler left behind was a ripped purse, a mysterious note and a young daughter who never knew why her mother failed to come home. 

    The vanishing of the 26-year-old even saw megastar Kirk Douglas dragged into the fracas.

    Theories swung wildly - from her death during a botched abortion to Spangler leaving LA with gangsters.  

The article also notes that "Spangler disappeared just two years after the heinous murder of Elizabeth Short, who is immortalized in true crime history as the Black Dahlia. Spangler's striking resemblance to Short, combined with her work at Florentine Gardens, owned by Short's acquaintance and murder suspect Mark Hansen, saw police wonder if she was another victim of the killer." Unfortunately, Spangler's case has never been solved and remains open.