Gun & Prepping News #99

Some links that may be of interest: 

• "Sling Manipulation for Home Defense: Making Slings Work Around Corners"--Ammo Land. The author begins: 

    A rifle sling is often treated as little more than a carrying strap. For a gun owner relying on a rifle, shotgun or pistol caliber carbine for home defense, that is a mistake.

    A properly set-up sling helps retain the rifle, frees a hand when necessary, and gives the shooter more control in hallways, doorways, and other confined spaces. A poorly adjusted sling can bind the rifle, slow a shoulder transition, or leave the gun swinging around when the shooter needs both hands.

    In a recent training video, Travis Haley of Haley Strategic demonstrates how sling configuration affects shoulder transitions, body exposure around corners, and the shooter’s ability to keep a rifle in action after an injury. Haley discusses those techniques primarily through the lens of close-quarters operations, but several of the underlying lessons have direct value for civilian gun owners who keep a carbine for home defense.

• "Close Encounters of the Revolver Kind"--Revolver Guy.  A look at concealed carry in the Old West with an emphasis on revolvers, including what some famous (or infamous) gunfighters used. An excerpt:

    All the same, most 19th century Westerners weren’t pistoleros by circumstance or experience and didn’t have the need or ability to tote large hog-legs for personal protection. Even so, the Western society of that era expected men to defend themselves against nutjobs and violent bullies. Thus, it was common for many Westerners, including some women, to be discreetly armed. Added to this was the dominant Western belief that a man’s personal honor and safety should be backed up by lethal force. 5

    Among the first to take advantage of these concealable arms were gunfighters on both sides of the law who wanted compact firepower in addition to their full-sized revolvers made by Colt, Smith & Wesson, Remington and other companies as backup heaters. Moreover, some boomtowns’ politicians forbade carrying firearms, especially open carrying such hardware. Therefore, many folks who worked in higher risk jobs carried small hidden firearms for self-defense. In those bygone days such weapons were known as hideout guns, cutdowns, pocket guns, vest pocket pistols, and bicycle guns. Today, our modern versions are called belly guns, snub-nosed revolvers, snubbies, micro pistols, backup guns and so forth. 

    So, a lot of Westerners who worked in mercantile stores, banking, gambling, bar tending, prostitution and stage coach transportation sought small equalizers that could be inconspicuously carried or stashed nearby. Quite a few manufacturers, both domestic and foreign, recognized a lucrative market and produced an assortment of small revolvers, some well-made and others clearly substandard. 

And you might find this note about the homicide rates interesting:

 In current-day America, 35 murders per 100,000 people is considered extremely high. Yet those figures pale in comparison to homicide rates in the Wild West. Adjusting for population densities, boomtowns Bodie, California, and the five main cattle Kansas cattle towns sported murder tallies that ran from 116 to 317 per 100,000 inhabitants. As bad as these statistics are, in the early 1850s the Pueblo of Los Angeles’s murder rate was 1,250 per 100,000 people. Historian John Bosessenecker believes that was by “far and away the highest homicide rate in American history.” Volunteers formed the Los Angeles Rangers to subdue the criminality.

• And some more firearms history: "The Beretta M1935: A Classic .32 Caliber Pistol"--The Shooting Wire. The author relates:

    The Beretta M1935 isn’t a fancy gun by any means. It’s a direct descendant of the Beretta M1934. The M1934 was a 9mm Corto (.380 ACP) Italian service pistol that served with the Royal Italian Army. The difference between the two is the caliber. 

    The M1935 is a direct-blowback .32 ACP pistol that feeds from a single-stack magazine. Like most guns of the era, it’s a hammer-fired, single-action-only pistol with a manual safety and heel-mounted magazine release.  

    The magazine holds eight rounds, which is one more than the M1934. The Italian Army already had the M1934, but the Navy and Air Force chose the .32 caliber M1935. The .380 had a bit more bite and nearly twice the free recoil of .32 ACP, so I imagine forces less focused on ground warfare wanted a little less oomph. 

    Beretta probably also had an eye on sales to police and external military forces. The .32 ACP was a popular cartridge amongst European police and military forces, and offering both made a lot of sense. Finland, Japan, and Nazi Germany all fielded the M1935. You didn’t have to redesign the gun to swap from .380 to .32. 

• And on to something more modern: "Meet the HK VP9CC: The New Micro-Compact With a Familiar Family Name"--The Truth About Guns. One thing that HK does now (not so much in the past) is get the ergonomics down (unlike another company whose name rhymes with "lock"). The author notes:

    Heckler & Koch did not skimp on the total package for the new pistol. The custom H&K-branded pistol bag includes six interchangeable backstraps, more than most other handguns on the market, to ensure you can get the exact grip you want on the VP9CC. The backstrap plays an important role in how you grip any handgun. If the backstrap is too elongated, it can prevent smaller-handed shooters from reaching the trigger.

    If the backstrap is too thin, it can give you “too much” trigger finger, where you’re having to curl your trigger finger uncomfortably outward to make a proper trigger pull. If shooting fundamentals have taught me anything, it is that building a good grip is the foundation of pistol shooting. If the backstrap makes or breaks a good grip, then you need the right one for your hand size.   

And look at the arch to the backstrap. You shouldn't be shooting low and left with this weapon.  

• "Concealed Carry Corner: Keys to Success"--The Firearm Blog. The first point the author raises is to know your limitations. He explains:

    One of the biggest issues I’ve seen with people in the concealed carry space is the concept of forcing a handgun to work no matter their body type or carry style. Some people are hell-bent on carrying a specific handgun, whether it's a full-size 1911 or even something larger like a Desert Eagle. There was an individual I met in the Detroit area who carried a Desert Eagle in 50 AE by having it in an OWB leather holster. I saw him walk into an indoor range where he proceeded to almost miss the target, hitting the D Zone 5 out of the 7 shots he fired. 

    If a firearm's too heavy to easily carry all day long and you can't shoot it accurately under pressure, why are you carrying it? ... 

• Think twice before getting involved: "Good Samaritan, 21, trying to stop robbery is shot three times before staggering down bloodied Seattle street where passersby refused to call 911 and FILMED him instead"--Daily Mail. From the lede:

    A 21-year-old man was shot three times while trying to stop a robbery in Seattle, and was left staggering through the streets as heartless passersby filmed his ordeal and his friend was left dying on the street.

    Matthew Lanske had just finished dinner with his friends in the city's Belltown neighborhood on September 6, when they witnessed an illegal street takeover, his family said.

    When Lanske and his friends then crossed the street near the intersection of 3rd Avenue and Clay Street, a man and two women tried to rob his friend, Isaac Elijah Rios, 20, at gunpoint. 

    Lanske immediately jumped in to help, bravely trying to grab the gun from the man, when he was shot three times – twice in the stomach while the third shattered his pelvis and struck a major artery, his sister Rebecca Garberding said. 

• "Why Boomers Grew Up Loving Guns"--The Truth About Guns. The author posits:

    The world these children grew up in was saturated with firearms long before any toy Colt reached their hands. World War II left behind enormous quantities of military arms and industrial capacity. As veterans returned home and factories shifted back to civilian production, the American firearm market absorbed both the surplus and the influence of wartime design. Affordable surplus rifles and handguns introduced many civilians to firearms, while Winchester, Colt, Smith & Wesson, Remington, Ruger, and Savage repositioned themselves for a peacetime market built on hunting, target shooting, home defense, and outdoor recreation.

    Popular culture reinforced the connection without needing to invent it. The number of American households with televisions jumped from a handful to more than nine in ten between 1946 and 1964. Westerns filled those living rooms with images of Colts, Winchesters, lawmen, and frontier justice. Even when the stories were fictional, they tied firearms to history and identity in the minds of the audience. So a Boomer child grew up with a father who may have carried a rifle in the war, a household that owned a hunting shotgun, and a television that ran cowboy dramas after dinner. The replica toy was a small part of a far larger picture.

The author also theorizes that the Cold War had its own impact on the Boomers. But the culture is an impact: I do not believe anyone could deny the impact that video games and GWOT had on Gun Culture 2.0.

• A different type of boomer: "Big boomer guns"--Backwoods Magazine. Massad Ayoob discusses the large magnum or express rifles, handguns and shotguns. An excerpt:

    I never did go after elephant intentionally, but being in elephant territory and knowing horror stories of humans crushed to doll rags by the giant mammals, it was reassuring to have a .375 and a .458 along. I later acquired a .416 Rigby caliber Ruger Model 77 Express rifle.

    Machismo value? About 9 out of 10. Practical value if you live in the “lower 48” United States and don’t have to worry about humongous bears of the Polar and Grizzly variety? Well, probably close to zero. But the ability to shoot these monstrously hard-kicking guns fast and straight? Well, in Macho Guy Terms, the value is probably incalculable.

    You’ll see alongside this article my friend Justin Schortmann shooting his brother-in-law Caleb Gunter’s .470 Express double barrel elephant rifle. Watch the muzzle rise. Watch the body rock backward. I can only say—YEE-HAW!

    If you aren’t in elephant country, do you need an elephant rifle? Well, heck, if you’re in a country with a 70 mile an hour speed limit, do you need a car that can race at over a hundred miles an hour? In a free country, it’s about what you want, not just what you need. Me, I kinda go with a point that Ross Seyfried first made when he was a professional hunter in Africa. I’ve owned .375, .416, and/or .458 caliber elephant rifles when I lived in New Hampshire, and when I lived in Florida.

    During all that time, no elephant has ever attacked me or my neighbors. One can only conclude that there is a deterrent effect at work here. You’d think my Yuppie neighbors in the New England suburbs would have appreciated more than they did, the fact that I, alone, obviously kept herds of elephants from trampling their Volvos into their rock gardens.

• A good argument for not allowing Flock cameras or similar automatic monitoring systems: "FBI’s Secret NICS Monitoring Tracked Lawful Gun Buyers"--The Truth About Guns.  From the article:

    For years, the FBI ran a program that let federal agencies watch what guns you buy — even when you’re perfectly legal to buy them. It’s called NICS Monitoring, and on September 15, 2026, FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed it exists.

    The confirmation came during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing. Sen. Ted Cruz laid it out plainly. Gun Owners of America, he said, “discovered a secret FBI program called NICS Monitoring, used to track firearm purchases of Americans who were legally eligible to buy a gun but were suspected of a crime. Is that right?” Patel’s answer: “Yes.”

    That one word ended a five-year fight. GOA has been suing the ATF over the program since a 2021 FOIA request first surfaced records the government has tried to bury under redactions and gag orders ever since. 

• Speaking of a police state: "Texas police department shut down for failing to provide ‘public benefit’ after arresting mom over dirty water Facebook post"--New York Post.  The woman was arrested because she made a post critical of the city's mishandling of the municipal water system. Apparently the State of Texas can shut down local law enforcement agencies, and did so in this case.
• The Conference of Catholic Bishops urge the Supreme Court to leave Americans helpless in the face of violent crime. One of the key groups that aided and abetted the invasion of the United States under Biden now urges the Supreme Court to uphold local and state AR15 bans. 
• "Unconventionality Reigns Supreme with the CRKT Mah-chete"--Gat Daily. So this is one of those blades that tries to provide the utility of a machete with a smaller blade--in this case, a 12 inch blade--giving you something big enough to chop, but small enough to serve other knife roles. The author reviews the tool and ends with this:

Not only does the CRKT Mah-chete perform like a true powerhouse outdoors, but it also offers a coolness factor that cannot be denied. Its untraditional design allows it to perform like a traditional machete, while accomplishing a lot more. It can slice and dice for meal prep, split wood like an ax, and puncture like a spear. The Mah-chete retails for only $80.00 and when weighing quality versus price, it’s no contest. The Mah-chete pays for itself with its unrelentless performance in the field. 

The blade shape and curve is very much like that of a parang, except with a more pronounced point; and the handle is slightly offset above the line of the blade which would, IMHO, increase the power of the cutting stroke.  Very similar to the now discontinued K-Bar Swabbie or Schrade's Decimate Parang. I have a Schrade Bush Sword (now called the Decimate Brush Sword) which is a similar concept (albeit with a longer blade) which I have found very useful around my yard. 

• If the grid goes down in the winter, you might not be able to do your business in a heated bathroom. "Pooping In The Cold"--Blue Collar Prepping. The author links to a video on YouTube. As the author notes, "While this video is about using outhouses in cold weather, the same principle applies in the woods; just find a log to sit on." And one of the comments notes: "Replace the toilet seat with a piece of rigid foam insulation with an appropriate hole. You will think the seat is heated!"
• "The Potato Hole"--Backwoods Magazine. A mini-root celler, if you will:

    We had talked of putting in a regular root cellar, but digging one by hand on our property would have been a daunting task. Just below the meager layer of topsoil which grew wonderful vegetables was a gigantic layer of solid concrete-like clay. So we got by with storing potatoes with the canned goods in the basement where the temperature hovered in the 50s. Unfortunately, sprouts were plentiful by spring.

    But one day a few years back, we decided we had had enough of a 15-foot chokecherry bush that was sending suckers into the garden several yards away, so my husband cut it down then dug the roots out — a task that required the pickax, saw, and shovel. The resulting hole looked like it wouldn’t take much to make it big enough to sink the 2 foot by 30 inch (inside diameter) concrete riser we had on hand. “Then,” I said, “we could store potatoes in it.”