Gun & Prepping News #103

 Some links that may be of interest: 

•  "How Many Self-Defense Shots Are Too Many?"--The Armory Life. Exploring the line between needing enough shots to stop the threat but not shooting after the threat has ended, and why there is no definitive answer. The article concludes:

    The most important takeaway is that there is no “approved” number of shots because every self-defense incident has its own facts and its own unique issues. Whether one fires once or 10 times, the actions must be based on sound reasoning, in response to an imminent threat, and proportionate to the threat.

    “Once the threat is neutralized,” said Hamby, “Further shots create a risk that you can be faced with criminal and civil liability.”

• "Pistol vs Rifle Cartridges: There is a Difference"--Shoot On. The author looks at the odd behavior he has seen in law enforcement of relying on the handgun or PCC to deal with a problem more appropriately addressed with a rifle. An excerpt:

    What we see and have seen is that, despite the ballistic reality that a long gun is a superior fight-stopping tool when facing a deadly threat, there is also a very real, if subconscious, belief that handguns are for close combat and long guns are for distance shooting. Even people with education and experience tend to fall into that mindset.

    Yes, many deadly force scenarios are unexpected, and you might only have a handgun available at that moment in time. But what about the times when you have the option to grab a long gun?

    We should all understand that a deadly force scenario is deadly serious. Our goal should be to stop the deadly threat as rapidly as our tools and time will allow. Given the ballistic superiority of a long gun chambering a rifle cartridge, one or two shots from a rifle are far more likely to incapacitate the threat versus a historically less-than-effective tool launching pistol bullets.

    Just recently, during a discussion of “truck guns,” a person offered that if the distance was close, 25 to 50 yards, a pistol-caliber carbine could be just as good of a choice or better than a rifle.

    From where does this thinking arise? 

• "What Will Make Your Gun Fail (and Why)?"--The Armory Life. Some warning signs to look for telling you that your weapon is too dirty, the springs are weakening, extraction and ejection issues. An excerpt pertaining to the latter issue:

    Here’s another area where a shooter can usually see warning signs before the gun begins to present major problems. In tandem, the extractor and ejector work to get fired cases out of your firearm. Usually, the extractor is the culprit, since it depends on both geometry and spring tension to do its job (whereas the ejector is so often just a piece of metal for the brass to ram into under recoil).

     When something is amiss, you may first notice inconsistent ejection patterns and angles. If brass cases are dribbling out of the gun or coming straight back at the shooter, it often indicates that the extractor claw isn’t maintaining consistent and strong tension on the rim of the cartridge. It may only be a matter of time before the problem progresses into stovepipe malfunctions or double-feeds. These stoppages are annoyances at the range, but could be deadly serious if you need your firearm in that moment to defend yourself or your loved ones.

    The easiest fix is usually to brush out any gunk. Carbon fouling can stick onto and under the extractor claw and accumulate in the recesses of the breech face. There, the detritus changes the way that cartridges are held in place. Fouling in the chamber itself can also make it harder for the extractor to maintain grip and clear fired brass. Note, however, that if your gun has to be run totally clean for it to work at all, something more serious could be at play. 

    While you have the gun apart, it’s prudent to look for geometry changes to the extractor and ejector. Do these parts look like they should, or are there any chips, cracks, or rounded-over edges? If everything looks fine, it could be a sign that the extractor spring is weakening and needs replacement.

• "Marlin 30-30: Why I Learned to Embrace the Marlin 336 and Forget the 94 Winchester"--Breach Bang Clear. A lot of history of the .30-30 generally, and the Marlin 36's background and history, the introduction of micro-grooving; as well as his review of the particular Marlin 336 he bought. And in explanation of why the author went with the Marlin 336 over the Winchester 94 (despite the Marlin weighing more) the author relates:

The Marlin 336 was immediately appealing thanks to its stronger action and the retention of the 1893’s side ejection port. Winchester rifles ejected their hot brass skyward, ideally over your head and, wrongly, down your shirt. Side ejection also let the shooter mount an optic on top of the receiver. The first Marlin 336 rifles were not tapped and drilled for a Weaver mount, but that addition was quickly implemented. Curiously, until recent production, the 336 featured two plug screws on the left side of the receiver that allowed the shooter to mount a Williams-style peep sight, a feature immediately familiar to shooters used to the M1 platform of rifles from the war.

I've had a few opportunities to shoot a Marlin 336 and liked it well enough that I'd thought about getting one. I don't particularly like how the 94 drops the bottom of the receiver when operating the lever. I know that is what allows it to get away with using a shorter receiver, but it also seems another path for dirt or moisture to get into the action. But I don't have any experience with the 94 (other than handling them a few times at a gun store) so perhaps it isn't the issue I think it is. 

• "The Revolver Can Fail"--Guns Magazine. The revolver's reputation for reliability is based on (i) its ability to tolerate neglect better than a semi-auto, and (ii) that fact that it doesn't rely on the recoil impulse to cycle the action. The author of this article also notes:

    One of the great virtues of a revolver is its mechanical simplicity. There aren’t many external parts the shooter has to think about, and when something goes wrong, the solution is wonderfully simple: pull the trigger again.

    This is the primary reason revolvers have earned such a reputation for reliability. There’s no magazine to seat (or become unseated), no slide to cycle and, in most circumstances, no complicated malfunction drill to perform. If one cartridge doesn’t go bang, there’s another one waiting in the cylinder — just pull the trigger.

But that doesn't mean that nothing can go wrong. This article discusses some of the common and uncommon issues that can come up with revolvers: everything from not letting the trigger fully reset to broken parts. The problems I've personally experienced are: not letting the trigger fully reset when shooting double-action a bit too quickly, bullets pulling out under recoil and locking up the cylinder, a broken trigger spring, and some trouble with a new revolver where it would sometimes not turn the cylinder that I never was able to diagnose but want away after shooting a box of ammo through it. 

• "Galco's Combat Master 2.0 Lands for the Glock 17"--The Firearm Blog.  The Combat Master is a pancake style holster. The updated version includes a cutout for optics, but, the author adds: "Galco says the cutaway also allows 'the pistol to clear leather even faster,' which the company credits with promoting a quicker, smoother draw for shorter-waisted shooters."
• For those wanting to use wood furniture for an AR build: "WOOX Introduces New Vigilante Beavertail Walnut Grip"--The Firearm Blog.  From the lede:

WOOX has introduced the Vigilante Beavertail Grip, a handcrafted AR-platform grip combining premium walnut with an integrated polymer beavertail. The grip is handcrafted in Italy from American Claro walnut and features laser-engraved grip texture. The beavertail extension is engineered from high-strength technopolymer and provides an integrated reinforced design for control, stability, and comfort. The grip maintains an ambidextrous, symmetrical design compatible with AR-15, AR-10, M4, and M16 platforms. 

• "How to Survive a Riot"--Bone Tactical.  The author begins:

 I’m Greg with Bone Tactical, and I’ve lived through real civil unrest... rioting, looting, roadways blocked with burning barricades, and prison yard chaos. What I’m about to share is a simple, repeatable system that keeps you alive, keeps you out of jail, and keeps you anchored to your values. The goal is not to “win.” The goal is to go home.

Obviously, the first advice he gives is "don't be there." But you don't always have that option. A couple more points:

    Fourth principle: protect your people. If you’re with family, you’re the shepherd. Assign roles before you move: you lead, the strongest adult brings up the rear, kids in the middle, hand-to-shoulder chain, not hand-to-hand so grips don’t break. Use short commands: “With me.” “Left.” “Stop.” “Go.” Do not argue with the crowd; your energy belongs to movement, not debate.

    Fifth principle: if you’re grabbed or encircled, break the ring, don’t wrestle the crowd. Pick the thinnest seam, burst through it decisively, and don’t stop until you’re clear by half a block. If you are physically detained, being assaulted, and capable of using a weapon, this is the time to do so. ... 

• "Putting Leupold’s Storm Warden Rain Gear Through the Wringer"--The Truth About Guns.  The author relates:

Straight out of the bag, the Storm Warden set feels more like technical mountaineering gear than typical hunting rain wear. The 70D nylon-spandex face fabric has some heft to it without feeling stiff, and the four-way stretch is immediately noticeable when you move your arms overhead or take a big stride over a downed log.

Also:

    My first real test came on a late winter coyote hunt where the forecast called for scattered showers and instead delivered a genuine downpour by mid-morning. I set up on a fence line overlooking a cut cornfield expecting to be miserable within the hour. Instead, the StormShield membrane in the jacket did exactly what Leupold claims it does.

    Water beaded and ran off the shoulders and hood rather than soaking through, and I stayed dry through nearly four hours of calling and glassing. The two-point adjustable hood was a nice touch, since I could cinch it down enough to keep rain off my face without losing peripheral vision, which matters a lot when you’re watching the tree line for a coyote working in on a call.

• "Californians flee for off-grid safe houses in Montana and Idaho with doomsday bunkers"--New York Post. The article begins:

    Fed-up Californians fleeing the state are buying homes in safer states offering open rural spaces that come with underground doomsday-style bunkers stockpiled with weapons and ammo for added security.

    Relocation consultant and former US Marine Todd Savage told The California Post 80% of his clients are from the Golden State as they seek to escape “high taxes, high crime, low freedom and blue-haired liberals.”

    The 55-year-old said: “They are tired of it, so they are voting with their feet. My clients want to raise children in a city where people don’t get kidnapped and murdered, with drugs and all kinds of lawlessness. They say let’s go somewhere where we’re treated as a citizen and not a subject. 

Unfortunately, once they get here, they immediately start trying to make it more like California.  

Spicy Times In Europe

    France is still burning, we've seen "mostly peaceful" protests in Belgium, and now protests have spread to Italy. This is being coordinated at some level. 

• In France: "Moment French rioters attack shopkeeper and distraught woman begs them not to loot store as police admit they've 'lost control' of violent protests that saw 143-year-old town hall incinerated." An excerpt:

    Violent protesters have rebelled over the cost of living, education standards and Mr Macron's government, with police admitting they 'lost control' on Saturday. 

    More than 1,200 demonstrators were arrested as the streets of major cities were turned into a battleground, with widespread riots described as 'apocalyptic'. 

    Desperate business owners and horrified residents could only watch in fear as the mob went door-to-door, smashing their way into each business.

    A distraught woman was seen begging rioters in Paris not to loot a supermarket.

    She was heard asking 'why are you doing this' and screaming 'this is not the cause' as a group of young male rioters push past her into the smashed shop. 

    The footage then shows the crowd appearing to cheer as the balaclava-clad looters leave with arms full of stolen goods.

    The shop was one of many buildings and businesses to be damaged in the demonstrations, as roughly 550,000 protesters took to the country's streets. 

    Limoges Town Hall, which was built in 1883 and survived both world wars, came tumbling down in a blaze after it was torched by rioters in France's south-west. 

    A video seen by 1.4million X users showed the historic building – which played a significant role in the French Resistance during the Second World War – collapsing with its bell tower engulfed in flames. 

    In another shocking video from Nice, a comic book shop owner was seen trying to defend his business as looters appeared to have smashed their way in.

    He stepped out to confront a rioter and shouted to the crowd but was knocked to the ground by a looter who kicked him in the back.

    French police admitted they did not have the manpower to cope as 1,200 protesters were arrested across the country.  

Meanwhile, French President Macron and his wife "were accused of acting like the out-of-touch King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette at the start of the 1789 Revolution after they were seen dancing in a private box at a Céline Dion concert on Friday night." President Trump had some advice for Macron:

He wrote on Truth Social: 'France is burning! The immigration of people from an entirely different world, people with hatred in their hearts, has shattered that once great country. Close your Borders and take control, before it is too late!' 

It is too late, however. France--and much of the rest of Europe--have pretty much reached a point of either fully succumbing and becoming Islamic societies or finding a strong man leader who will purge their countries of the invaders notwithstanding national and EU laws.

    As to the female shop owner from the article, there appears to be a bit more to the story than related in the Daily Mail piece:

 

And from Rod Dreher, who has always believed a piece of paper made one an "American" or some other nationality:

 

•  And in Italy: "Rioters loot stores, set fires in central Milan during cost-of-living protest"--AP. From the article:

    Rioters clashed with police, looted stores and set property on fire in central Milan on Saturday, emptying Piazza del Duomo and a luxury shopping arcade when the area would usually be teeming with shoppers.

    The march against wars and rising living costs began peacefully. But masked protesters threw stones, paving blocks and other objects at riot police and set fire to barricades made from bar tables. Images of the aftermath showed a severely damaged carabinieri car.

    Police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the crowds.

    At least two police officers were injured and about 50 demonstrators, including many minors, were detained, the LaPresse news agency reported.

    Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni condemned the violence in a social media post.

    “Demonstrating is a right. Setting our cities ablaze is not,” she wrote, citing “hooligans who exploit demonstrations to sow chaos, attack those responsible for ensuring security and hold entire cities hostage.”

    Milan’s center-left mayor, Giuseppe Sala, said “the reasons for the protests were understandable. The violence against law enforcement and serious damage to the city are not justifiable.”

    The unrest coincided with nationwide demonstrations in neighboring France against rising living costs and in support of high school students’ grievances. French police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse violent protesters who joined the rallies.

 And the protests continued into Sunday. 

•  And in Belgium: "Belgian police fire tear gas at protesters"--Le Monde. An excerpt:

    Belgian police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of demonstrators in Brussels and Liège taking part in cost-of-living protests on Saturday, October 17, similar to violent rallies in neighboring France.

    High school students have staged protests in recent weeks against higher university registration fees, but Interior Minister Bernard Quintin blamed the troubles on "organized violence."

    Police in Brussels used tear gas against youths in the Bourse district who lobbed bottles and other missiles, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalist said. Police said about 10 arrests were made. Following calls made on social media, several hundred people gathered near the Belgian capital's central railway station earlier.

    A protest march was eventually authorized by authorities, but water cannon was used to disperse groups who threw fireworks and flammable liquids, police said. Garbage bins and e-scooters were set on fire, and a Socialist Party office was vandalized during the disturbances.

Original Hardy Boys E-Books

Here is something that home schoolers and those just interested in a bit of nostalgia might enjoy.  One of my sons stumbled across a site that has e-books of the original Hardy Boys books that have gone into the public domain in Canada (plus lots of other books). These are the original versions which started to be published in the 1920s and through the '30s, '40s, and into the 1950s before the publisher went back and edited and changed the stories, coming out with the blue spine copies that most of us are probably familiar with. I've read quite a few of these original stories: some are very similar to the blue spine versions; but others are very different stories. For instance, the original of The Disappearing Floor is a wholly different story, as is The Secret Of The Caves and The Missing Chums. Others have similar elements, but have been greatly changed such as Hunting For Hidden Gold and The Mystery of Cabin Island.

I believe the rewriting of the books in the 1950s wasn't just to update some of the technology and settings, but to also make the books align better with the prevailing attitudes of what books for children should be like, similar to the changes we saw as a result of the adoption of the Comic Codes Authority. While the Hardy Boys in the original books sometimes carried revolvers (and even used them on occasion, although never to kill a person) the updated versions have removed any such references. The original Hardy Boys were also a bit more rambunctious, had little respect for the Bayport police force, and were not above practical jokes and funny jibes. 

Project Gutenberg also has some of the books available.  

Weekend Reading #77

Some longer or more involved reading:

•  Jon Low has posted his mid-month Defensive Pistolcraft newsletter. A few points I found especially notable:

    First, Jon has some comments regarding an article I had linked to about trigger control, which I will repeat in full (the original in regular type and Jon's comments in italics):

     ". . . I don’t think exact digit placement matters so long as you can pull the trigger straight back with each shot."  

[I disagree.  Consistency is accuracy.  The center of the trigger should be in the center of your fingerprint.  Everyone has a whorl, loop, or arch fingerprint on the pad of their trigger finger.  The center of the trigger should be on the center of your fingerprint.  If your trigger is not in the correct position for this to allow you to press the trigger straight to the rear, get a gunsmith to move the trigger for you.  Yes, as a matter of fact, a competent gunsmith can move the trigger on any pistol.  (Moving the trigger position on 1911's is especially easy by replacing the trigger.)  
-- Jon Low ]   

I think there is a bit more nuance to this issue. It has long been recognized that while the center of the pad works the best for firearms with a lighter trigger, the distal crease (i.e., the crease at the first joint of the finger closest to the tip) is best for heavy trigger pulls such as you will get when shooting double action. Massad Ayoob calls this the "power crease". This is why I prefer a smooth trigger face on double-action triggers. 

    A second item that stuck out to me were some comments Jon had quoted from Gabe Suarez about striking versus takedown/ground fighting in a street fight. Suarez's comments were in response to a piece from Pete Blair at Tactical Science arguing that police should use take downs because they present better to witnesses or a jury; and Suarez taking the position that in fights on the street, take downs are too dangerous because of the environment or the possibility of the suspect stabbing or cutting you while you are tied up with him on the ground. Jon agreed with Suarez, writing: "I agree with Gabe.  Don't grapple.  You will pick up all kinds of nasty diseases, fleas, lice, feces, urine, and such.  They will bite you.  They will scratch you.  (Yes, it happened to me when I was working in the hospital emergency rooms.)  Strike and twist to disengage.  Separate and weaponize." I've been told and read the same from other sources as well. Leaving out the chance of your opponent having a weapon, the street or sidewalk or parking lot is not the same as the practice mats at a dojo: a street fight presents a hard surface with curbs, rocks and other debris (possibly broken glass or other debris that will cut), with only the Lord knows what else. And if you assailant has buddies, going to the ground leaves you at risk of being kicked or stomped by them. 

    Third, Jon links to a short video that I think is important for everyone, but especially for women, older men, and boys, on fighting against someone that has you in a grip (for instance, grabbing your jacket or shirt or grabbing one of your arms). Jon summarizes and comments:

     Don't fight the grip, fight the face [gouge eyes, finger through the ears into the brain (Oh yes, your finger is long enough to reach his brain, if you are a petite woman your fingers are thin enough to get through his ear canal.  And if you've got long sharp glued on finger nails, well . . .  Can't imagine yourself doing that to a human?  Well, I can assure you that he can imagine raping and sodomizing you, and will.  So decide.), or cup your hands and clap over his ears to break his ear drums with air pressure].  Don't wait for him to hit you.  Strike first.   

    Finally, Jon comments about a video Massad Ayoob recently posted about speeding up your pistol reloads, where Ayoob recommended using the slide release instead of pulling back on the slide (the sling-shot method) to release the slide. Jon raises a good point:

     I disagree.  The reason you MUST rack the slide instead of hitting the slide stop, is because the slide might not be locked back.  You must always use techniques that work in all conditions, not just the pristine conditions of your air conditioned indoor range.   

I can affirm Jon's reasoning, albeit from a slightly different factual pattern. I had been invited by a friend to go to a shooting match and, since I didn't have a handgun suitable for such matches at the time, my friend let me use a 1911-style 9mm he had. Up to that point, I generally used the slide release; but the problem I quickly discovered when I did my first reload was that I couldn't quite reach the slide release with my thumb, so I had to resort to the sling shot method (and thank goodness I had enough experience I could make the shift smoothly and quickly). I think the advantage of doing it the same way each time outweighs the marginal time savings from using the slide release--especially if you find yourself, like me, under time constraints and suddenly discovering that using the slide release is not a viable option. 

    Jon has a lot more, so be sure to check the whole thing out.

• It's the weekend, so that means that Greg Ellifritz has another Active Response Training Weekend Knowledge Dump.  Lots of good stuff this week, so it has been hard to pare it down to a handful that particularly stick out. But here goes:
• I've grown to like some of the African hunting stories, but Greg links to one that is a bit unusual: an African hunting guide that used a MAC-10 submachine gun to deal with a large troop of baboons that had killed a village child and otherwise become a dangerous nuisance. 
• An article with good advice for concealed carry shooters entitled "Top 6 Things Every Concealed Carry Holder Should Know." Because there is much more to concealed carry than just knowing how to draw and shoot your handgun.
• But you need to be able to shoot accurately when it comes down to it as the tale of the mad dog illustrates. 
• A detailed article on getting appendix carry to work for men (or women, for that matter) with big bellies. 
• A good article explaining the difference between competition shooting and tactical/combat training. Key bit: "Tactical training isn't trying to win a match. It's trying to solve a lethal-force problem while minimizing unnecessary risk to yourself and others. A doorway on a competition stage is simply part of the course design. A doorway in a hostile structure may be a fatal funnel requiring an entirely different solution." However, if you don't care about winning a competition, you can approach it from a more combat oriented perspective.
• A detailed article from Swift Silent Deadly on putting together a more realistic bug-out bag. 
• A piece from Off Grid on the many uses for a triangular bandage. 

• And now for something completely different: "How Did the Tesla Roadster Fly? Here’s How It Works"--Motor Trend. From the lede:

The most staggering technology introduced on the new Tesla Roadster is a propulsion system pulled directly from SpaceX—the rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company also owned by Elon Musk. In the Roadster shown at the event, four metal nozzles sit just above the rear bumper and look for all the world like the exhaust tips on your standard supercar (think C8 Corvette but spread farther apart). But this is an EV, so those pipes are not venting exhaust gases, but high-pressure air, primarily nitrogen, that’s stored in a massive black spherical tank that sits behind the roadster’s two front seats. The ball is a composite-overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV), and it’s connected by two pipes that feed the four nozzles, which function as cold gas thrusters (CGT).

• "Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter Is The Archetype The Right Must Embrace To Counter Left Wing Nihilism And Degeneracy"--Fandom Pulse. Not the character presented in the Disney movie, of course, but from Burroughs' novels. An excerpt:

    John Carter is a chivalric ideal, a man who embodies all the masculine virtues in their perfect Aristotelian mean—or at least comes close to it. He embodies duty but not weakness. He embodies strength but not cruelty. He embodies adventure but not recklessness. To put it bluntly, John Carter is a masculine hero in the truest sense of those words.

    He’s a man who knows what he wants and takes after it with every ounce of his being. He does not shirk from battle; in fact, he’s a fighting man. Battle is in his blood, and he’s called to it as his vocation. He’s a leader of men, at all times honorable and fair. He’s the kind of man who can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. You’d rather have no one else by your side and rather anyone else against you. John Carter embodies the archetype of the king, which I would argue is completely lost on the world today. 

    When was the last time you saw a man portrayed so favorably on television? When was the last time you saw a man like John Carter?

    Because I can tell you this, it certainly wasn’t in the John Carter movie.

    Now I don’t want to rag too harshly on this movie as he does still become the hero. But it does illustrate the trend media took over the 20th century. Our culture swung from strong men being strong men, to weak men becoming strong men, and finally to weak men being weak men. You can see this everywhere, even in Peter Jackson’s acclaimed Lord of the Rings movies. Aragorn is not a reluctant hero in the books. He doesn’t second guess himself. But for some reason, such a thing was incomprehensible to audiences (or rather Hollywood writers) in 2001. And it has only gotten far worse from there.

    You can visibly detect how masculinity has been increasingly portrayed more tragically as time goes on. When men are not outright evil, they’re to be demeaned as the fundamentally lesser of the two sexes. It is always the man who is less capable, less aware, less actualized. If the man is loving, he must also be bumbling and weak. 

[snip]

    Dissident literature, if it is to stand against Leftwing art, it must be uplifting to the soul—and especially to this masculine spirit. The heroic must awaken in men again. And while this does not mean all men are called to be warriors, all men are called to be as virtuous as John Carter, and as a man, to live life with that same vitality in whichever vocation he is called to. 

Read the whole thing. 

Dumb Firearm Training

In "Dumbest Ways We Train with Firearms," Richard Mann has some cutting remarks about popular drills and procedures. For instance, about the immediate action drills to clear stoppages, Mann writes: "I’m sorry, but if you’re in a gunfight and your pistol stops working, the most likely cause is that it is out of ammo. The standard immediate action of, tap, rack, and ready, will not sort this problem." 

A more practical approach to dealing with a pistol that will not go bang—while you are in the middle of shooting at something to save your life—is not to conduct some sort of action that requires you to determine the precise cause of the failure. Just reload the pistol. And by reloading the pistol I mean, eject the magazine that is in it, insert a new magazine, and fully rack the slide. If the pistol is out of ammo, this will fix it. If it has a stoppage, this will most likely correct it. If it is a type-3 stoppage, you will likely have to pull the magazine from the handgun, but you’ll realize that when it does not eject.

He also has some harsh words about scanning after shooting a target.  

The Great Replacement: Funded By Your Tax Dollars

Funded by your tax dollars going to liberal religious institutions. From the New York Post: "Two Christian groups were paid $62M to resettle tens of thousands of Somalis in Minnesota." The article relates:

    Two church non-profits have taken in at least $62 million to build the Somali community in Minnesota — leading to the rise of Ilhan Omar and the fraud scandals that have gripped that state, The Post can reveal.

    Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services were at the forefront of reshaping the frigid Land of 10,000 Lakes thanks to generous government contracts stemming back generations.

    “This is a very big pile of government money and a whole bunch of different groups have come to get their own slice of it,” Parker Thayer, an immigration expert at the Washington, DC-based Capital Research Center, told The Post.

    He added the total money pouring into Minneapolis resettlement programs alone is “in the hundreds of millions.”

    He noted that since 2021, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the body overseeing Catholic Charities, has received $140 million in migrant resettlement contracts from the federal government.   

[snip]

    The two church groups have resettled an estimated 29,000 Somalians into Minnesota since 1993, collecting a reported $2,500 per refugee to cover costs like food, initial housing and social workers.

    The population today is over 100,000 in Minnesota according to data, thanks to chain migration (also known as “family reunification”) and the state’s generous welfare system, which became a magnet for Somalis, including those initially placed elsewhere in the US.

    “They picked Minnesota because it had extremely generous state social safety net policies and welfare programs, which of course made resettling refugees there easier,” Thayer said. “Refugees from Somalia then moved to Minnesota after they were resettled elsewhere, in places like South Dakota.

The article includes some history of Minnesota being a dumping ground, noting that after WWII many refugees were resettled into Minnesota; and, later, the Hmong of Vietnam--who had assisted the CIA in the Vietnam war--were also resettled in Minnesota. It makes you wonder if the Somali groups being resettled now were, similar to the Hmong, also those groups which worked with the CIA.

Related:

• "Ilhan Omar Was 37 When She Entered Congress. Soon, She Became 36"--PJ Media. 
• "Why does an American state have Somali gangs?"--Washington Examiner.
• "Yes, Somali Immigrants Commit More Crime Than Natives"--City Journal. 

The SPLC And Debanking: Then And Now

On August 15, 2024, the Southern Poverty Law Center called "debanking" a "conspiracy theory". The SPLC's assertions did not age well. As reported by Yahoo! Finance: 

    The Comptroller of the Currency says the nation's nine largest banks denied financial services to customers based on their political, religious, or social beliefs, according to a regulatory review released Wednesday. 

 [snip]

    The federal banking watchdog determined that the banks' sweeping internal guidelines lacked objective, risk-based criteria, effectively shutting out legitimate customers and businesses based on ideological leanings rather than financial risk.

    The OCC said its findings reveal a systematic effort within the banking sector to restrict access for politically sensitive industries through both public and nonpublic policies.

    Federal regulators found that lenders restricted certain sectors' access to financial services, including oil and gas exploration; coal mining; firearms or ammunition manufacturing or distribution; construction or operation of detention facilities; and the manufacturing, distribution or online retail of tobacco or e-cigarettes.  

It is notable that, per this Life News article, the SPLC is indirectly implicated in "debanking" as at least some of the banking institutions relied on SPLC materials to discriminate against certain businesses. From the article:

    JPMorgan Chase’s WePay closed the account of a religious organization after it was designated an “extremist hate group” by the SPLC; internal notes described it as a “right wing religious conservative non profit with strong anti LGBTQ rhetoric.” WePay also closed an account used by a devout Christian to fund a legal challenge to anti-discrimination laws.

    PNC denied a line of credit to a media company in part because an owner funded Christian conservative groups the SPLC had labeled hate groups. Wells Fargo pressured a payment processor to end service to a religious nonprofit over its views on same-sex marriage.

    These actions followed the circulation of a report titled “Bankrolling Bigotry: An Overview of the Online Funding Strategies of American Hate Groups.” The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network emailed it to leaders at major banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citibank.

    Drawing on Southern Poverty Law Center designations, the report falsely listed pro-life and Christian organizations—Alliance Defending Freedom, Liberty Counsel, the Family Research Council, the Ruth Institute, and the American College of Pediatricians—alongside white nationalist, white supremacist, and Holocaust denial groups. It urged platforms to restrict their access and recommended that Congress consider stripping them of tax-exempt status. 

And from a New York Post article about the OCC findings:

Banks regularly used hate group designations from the Southern Poverty Law Center to debank customers. The SPLC was indicted in April on federal fraud and money-laundering charges, with prosecutors alleging it defrauded donors of millions of dollars. FBI Director Kash Patel has described the non-profit as a “partisan smear machine.” 

Idaho's Proposition 1

The big political fight in Idaho's upcoming election will be Proposition 1 which will largely nullify Idaho's restrictions on abortion-on-demand. Idaho currently makes it a crime for a person (i.e., a doctor or other abortionist) to perform or attempt to perform an abortion except (i) during the first trimester of a pregnancy; or (ii) to prevent the death of the pregnant woman. The act does not make it illegal for a woman to obtain an abortion, however, which means she is free to go to another state. So really, all it makes illegal are abortions in the second and third trimesters except when to prevent the death of a pregnant woman.

    But this law has really pissed off liberal white women, particularly those who don't want a handicapped child or child with medical problems. For instance, this article at The 19th relates the following about one supporter of Proposition 1, Lisa Wirsching:

    On some days, it seems as if the campaign to overturn Idaho’s abortion ban has taken over Wirsching’s life. But just a year ago, this grandmother living outside of Boise would hardly have called herself a political woman. She supported abortion rights, she said, and mourned the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Still, she never thought the issue could shape her own life so intimately. 

    That changed when her youngest daughter, Abby Nichols, was pregnant with her first child.

    Near the end of her first trimester, Nichols learned her fetus had trisomy 18, a genetic anomaly that stunts development. Only 10 percent of babies born with the condition survive to their first birthday. When Nichols decided to end her pregnancy — which she felt would spare needless suffering — she couldn’t get help in Idaho. After contacting medical providers in Colorado and Washington, she finally found an appointment in Seattle. 

Note well, however, that Nichols learned about the condition in the first trimester and could have at that point obtained an abortion in Idaho. It's not clear from the article why she couldn't get help in Idaho--whether she waited too long to make a decision, her doctor refused to perform the abortion, or she wanted to keep the baby but her mother convinced her to have an abortion. 

    The article from The 19th suggests that this is wholly a homegrown effort, although it goes on to note that supporters of the proposition had received a $250,000 donation from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; and a few days ago the local Public Radio station reported that "[s]ince Sept. 1, Idahoans United for Women and Families has brought in nearly $2.5 million to support Proposition 1, according to state campaign finance records." That may not seem much for most states, but for a state with as small a population as Idaho, that is a lot of money. 

    But as with most things that are supported by liberals, the image they try to create are at odds with what they are actually pushing. You can read the text of Proposition 1 here, but a few points:

• It goes well beyond abortion and impacts all aspects of health care for women related to contraception, fertility treatment, prenatal and pregnancy care, childbirth, etc.  
• It creates a right of privacy which would extend to minors seeking care, meaning that parents could be left in the dark about any pregnancy care or abortion services provided to their children.
• Its definition of "reproductive health care" could probably be stretched to include transitioning children to a different sex.
• It allows abortion up to the point of "fetal viability" which is defined as the point when the physician determines that "the fetus has a significant likelihood of sustained survival outside of
  the uterus without extraordinary medical measures." What are "extraordinary medical measures"? It isn't defined, but my guess is that anything requiring serious NICU care would qualify. 

So, under Proposition 1, healthy babies could be aborted up to about 25 or 26 weeks (i.e., almost all of the way through the second trimester which ends at 27 weeks) and babies with severe medical issues potentially longer, perhaps even up to birth. 

    In other words, although the Left is framing the debate around women supposedly unable to get an abortion to deal with a medical emergency, the intent of the bill is to allow unrestricted abortion up to the beginning of the third trimester; and to keep knowledge of teen pregnancies from parents. 

Ruger Guts Its Revolver Line

In addition to one or two models discontinued earlier this year, Ruger has announced it is discontinuing immediately or after the beginning of the new year an additional 19 models. Unfortunately, it sounds as though Ruger is gutting its revolver line up, with the video mentioning that Ruger is immediately discontinuing production of its LCR, SP101, GP100 and Bearcat revolvers; and, after the end of its 2026 production runs, discontinuing the Redhawk, Super Redhawk, Blackhawk, Super Blackhawk, Single-Series revolvers, and Vaquero revolvers. At that point, I believe that the only revolvers left in its line up will be the Wrangler and Super Wrangler revolvers. 

Ruger is also discontinuing some of its upper-end sporting rifles (the No. 1, 77-Series rifles, Hawkeye and Ruger Precision Rifle) and pistol caliber carbines.  

• See also "Ruger to Discontinue Several Major Models"--American Rifleman.

 As the cited article notes:

With this shift, Ruger's handgun product lines continuing into 2027 will consist of the company's LCP offerings, RXM, MAX-9, Security-380, Security-9, Ruger 5.7, Mark IV and 22 Charger. In its revolver line, Ruger will continue making its affordable Wrangler and Super Wrangler models. For rifles, remaining Ruger offerings will consist of the company's American Rifle and American Rimfire line, as well as the Ruger Precision Rimfire, Harrier, 10/22 and Mini-14 models. 

As for a reason, the Company indicates:

"These decisions reflect our review of consumer demand, evolving market preferences, manufacturing complexity and the long-term profitability of each product family," Clary said. "The goal is to focus our resources on the products consumers want most today while creating capacity for future product development and manufacturing modernization."

The producer/host of the video, below, floats the idea that most of the products--particularly the revolvers--take skilled workers that just might not be around anymore. Another issue might be declining sales, not helped by the fact that Ruger revolvers have become as expensive as offerings from other major players like S&W and Colt. And when you look at what remains in their lineup, it is primarily the budget and mid-price range offerings. If the Mini-14 had not seen a surge in popularity recently, I wonder if it would have been facing the chopping block as well. 

VIDEO: "Ruger Discontinues / Suspends Production of 20 Different Models..."
The Turkey's Opinion (10 min.)

Distance and Reaction Time

You all have heard of the Tueller drill. It presupposes an attacker armed with a knife rushing a defender with a holstered handgun. Through the drill, it was determined that the shortest distance the average police officer could draw his handgun and fire on the attacker was if the attacker was 21 feet. But what about shorter distances? 

    In "Understanding the distancing and reaction time continuum" by Brian K. LaMaster at Buckeye Firearms Association, the author notes that most attackers will probably be initiating an attack at 10 feet or less. "On the average," he relates, "reaction times can vary from .4 seconds to .8 seconds. This means you have very little time to perceive their movement and react to it. Alright, you have about three-fourths of a second to react to someone who is moving towards you at ten feet away. If your reaction time is one half to three-fourths of a second, that leaves you with little or no time to react!"

    Unfortunately, the author continues, lateral movement does not create as much additional space (and time) as you might think. He conducted some tests, the gist of which is that at distances closer than 21-feet, even when attempting to create space, the defender was generally able to react fast enough to draw his handgun. For instance, moving the attacker to a 10 foot distance from the defender:

... The attacker made the first move and within one second the attacker was on the victim and had cut him at least once. After that, we had the defender move laterally by sidestepping. About one-half second into the attacker's movement the defender started his lateral movement. On the average, the defender was only able to cover about four feet of ground. Moving laterally does not created distance away from the attacker fast enough in order to survive especially when using the sidestepping method of footwork. In some instances the defender drew their gun only after being cut multiple times by the attacker.

A more experienced gunman did better, able to get off at least one shot even with the attacker at 5-feet. This was because:

When moving laterally the defender used cross-stepping method of footwork which kept the defender ahead of the attacker and out of reach for the most part. The defender was able to create about ten feet of ground before finally getting cut. I might ad that for the most part the defender only received cuts on his free side arm since he was drawing and shooting one handed! All of this happened in just a little over one and one-half seconds and it took that long only because the defender was able to create so much distance by cross-stepping.

Also, the experienced attacker was familiar with pre-attack indicators which gave him an edge. 

    At 5-feet starting distance, none of the inexperienced defenders could even get their gun out and the experienced gunman could not get a shot off. The foregoing was in normal lighting conditions. In dim light, even if a handgun could be drawn, the defenders were not able to hit their target.

    What the experiments did show, however, is that if the defender resorted to unarmed combatives first in order to give them time to create distance, and then to drawing their firearm, they did much better. 

In short, responding with unarmed combatives [to a knife wielding attacker] will keep you in the fight longer than by going straight for your gun. Going straight for your gun most of the time is not going to be a wise idea. And, if you move laterally or other directions with a step-n-drag method of footwork, you will not create enough distance to survive!

Related: But what about someone armed with a firearm? "Get to cover? A requiem for common sense." by Aaron Cowan. A good discussion of what is or is not cover (along with illustrations) with an emphases on what cover is offered by different parts of a vehicle.

House Dems Announce How They Will Screw Us Over If They Win

From the AP: "House Democrats plan a first 100-days agenda if they sweep to power in midterm elections." Per the article:

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is in line to become House speaker if the party wins power, said the Democrats will be united “right out of the gate” on reinstating Affordable Care Act tax breaks [i.e., effectively subsidies for health insurers], reversing Republican Medicaid cuts [i.e., taxpayer funded health care for illegals], holding votes against the Iran war [i.e., posturing for the press] and undoing President Donald Trump’s tariff regime [i.e., helping out China and making it cheaper to ship jobs overseas]. 

Point Nemo

An interesting piece at Atlas Obscura entitled "The Most Remote Place on Earth Has Space Junk and a Sea Monster." The most remote place--i.e., the farthest point from any dry land--is called Point Nemo and is located in the South Pacific at 48°52.6’S 123°23.6’W. Because it is so remote, it became a favorite place for Russia and a few other countries to use as a crash site for decommissioned satellites and such, including the Russian Mir space station. Thus, the reference to space junk in the title. 

    And the sea monster reference? That has to do with Cthulhu and the fictional sunken city of R’lyeh. From the article:

    Decades before Point Nemo was named, and before satellites started raining down, H.P. Lovecraft used these lonely waters as the setting for R’lyeh, a “nightmare corpse city (…) built in measureless eons beyond history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars”.

    In The Call of Cthulhu (1928), R’lyeh is described as “a coast-line of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth’s supreme terror … loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours”.

    The sunken city is the prison of the giant monster Cthulhu, part octopus, part human, part dragon: “There lay great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults”. His followers pray for his regeneration, repeating the phrase: Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn (“In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming”).

    Remarkably, Lovecraft placed his lost city at 47°9′S 126°43′W, just 205 miles (330 km) away from Point Nemo. August Derleth, co-creator of the Cthulhu Mythos, placed Rlyeh at 49°51′S 128°34′W, also in the general neighborhood. Clearly, both were looking for the furthest place from land, but without the benefit of modern satellites and computing. 

Watergate As A CIA Operation

An interesting piece at American Greatness--"Long-Concealed Facts Exonerate Nixon and Require Sanctioning the Unethical Prosecution"--discusses the evidence that Nixon and his campaign staff did not know about or authorize the Watergate break ins, but that it was a CIA operation (which, frankly, ties in neatly with the Washington Post pushing the narrative that Nixon had ordered the break in). The key bits:

    The prosecution and the Senate had ample evidence that Watergate was primarily a CIA operation designed to gain ostensible authority for its prostitute-taping program. Howard Hunt was an undercover CIA agent who, in his criminal Watergate trial, was prepared to offer a “CIA defense,” which he pursued until pleading guilty at the urging of John Dean, Nixon’s White House Counsel, who turned state’s evidence.

    The prosecutors were well aware of this defense, while another CIA operative, burglary leader James McCord, told his Metropolitan Police friend on the morning of the burglary that this had been a CIA operation.

    Republican Senator Howard Baker published a detailed, persuasive 43-page, unpublicized minority report on July 2, 1974, detailing CIA participation in the burglary, but the Washington Post’s reporting of it concealed its findings, and the highly publicized 1,250-page Watergate Committee Report (also known as the Ervin Report), prepared by the Democrat majority, ignored this key evidence.

And:

    While the prosecution and congressional investigations premised the break-in as a campaign operation gone wrong, it was, beyond a doubt, about wiretapping prostitutes and their visiting Democrat johns.

    The Washington Post has been overheated in its rhetoric denying this incontrovertible fact, but this strenuous denial only shows its guilt for this gross concealment.

The question then becomes, why was the CIA interested in wiretapping the prostitutes visited by Democrat officials and politicians? The logical answer would be to collect compromising information about those politicians that the CIA could use to "persuade" those politicians. Really, not much different than what it is theorized that Epstein was doing. 

UK: 4 In 5 Jobs Go To Migrants

From The Telegraph (via Yahoo): "Migrants taking four in five new jobs." An excerpt:

    The analysis by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) found that the number of jobs recorded through PAYE increased by about 3.7 million between 2014 and the end of 2025.

    Just 734,000 of the increase was accounted for by British nationals taking the jobs. EU nationals represented a further 408,000, while the number of jobs held by non-EU nationals increased by around 2.5 million.  

Immigration: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

The New York Post warns: "Deadly, brain-liquifying fungus is on the rise in the US — and scientists don’t know why." Some items noted in the article:

• "Cladophialophora Bantiana is a dark or black mold and found in soil and decaying matter around the world."
• "C. Bantiana has been thought of in the past as a tropical infection associated with warmer climates and high average humidity — but is now acknowledged to be found worldwide."
• "While the number of cases [in the U.S.] ranged from one to five per year between 2009 to 2023, they rose to eight in 2024 — then jumped to 14 in 2025." According to another report, this represents an approximately fourfold increase from 2023 to 2025 and, per the same report, "[t]he largest numbers of cases originated in California (six), Florida (five), Texas (five), and Pennsylvania (four); the state of origin was unavailable for three cases."
•  "One study showed that C. Bantiana cases similarly jumped in France in 2022 ...."

The article suggests that its appearance in the U.S. and France is due to global warming because global warming causes everything, but the increase in occurrence tracks jumps in illegal immigration under the Biden Regime. And it is notable that illegal immigration into the EU increased dramatically between 2021 and 2022--up 59% according to this report. And, frankly, the ties to immigration--a well known source for the spread of pathogens--seems more likely an explanation than an imaginary climate crisis. 

Life Under The Biden Regime

The New York Post: "Major banks closed accounts of MAGA, pro-life and other conservative groups disfavored by Biden admin: bombshell report." From the lede:

    Major banks closed accounts and refused credit to MAGA merchants, pro-life causes, religious groups, conservative organizations and sectors disfavored by the Biden administration, such as firearms, oil and gas, and private prisons, a bombshell report from the federal banking regulator has found.

    The Debanking Review by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) investigated 100,000 complaints and scrutinized 50,000 internal bank records to reveal how customers were “debanked” based purely on their political, social, or religious beliefs.

    JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank, and BMO Bank were found to have discriminated against American consumers, citing “reputation risk” as a reason to deny service between 2020 and 2025. 

A Sad Reminder Of Hollywood's Hypocrisy

Hollywood types love to lecture the rest of us about needing to be more diverse, caring, inclusive, etc., but then we come across news articles like this--"‘Breaking Bad’ star RJ Mitte claimed Hollywood didn’t want him on screen in heartbreaking texts before death at 34"--and it again reminds us that Leftists are just a bunch of hypocrites.

If you don't know who is RJ Mitte, he played the handicapped son of the character "Walter White" in the show Breaking Bad.  Mitte reportedly took his own life a few days ago. The article relates:

    RJ Mitte was frustrated at having a hard time finding work following his success on “Breaking Bad,” his personal text messages reveal.

    The actor died Monday by suicide, Page Six confirmed. He was 34 years old.

    Mitte, who had cerebral palsy and was a disability rights advocate, said he was facing obstacles from landing meaningful acting gigs in text messages to a close friend obtained by the Daily Mail.

[snip]

    In a text message from April 2022, Mitte wrote, “Looking for interesting stuff to do, getting a lot of scripts where I would be a prop and they don’t want to give any depth, 3 lines if that. I’m writing my own s—t now.”

    The situation didn’t improve four months later, when he wrote, “Just doing animation, no one wants me on screen… it’s annoying as f—k.”

    He also detailed getting overlooked by casting directors because of his disability.

    “When I go for a part, they sometimes tell me that it’s not a character with a disability, and I’m like why can’t the character be disabled?” he wrote in April 2017.

    “They get real uncomfortable when I say that,” he added.

    He also called some casting agents “a—holes” who “won’t even look at me.” 

The Matinicus Rock Light

The New England Folklore blog has a ghost story for us. The author relates:

Matinicus Rock isn't very big (only about 30 acres), but there has been a lighthouse on it since 1827. For many years there were two towers with lights, one each on the north and south ends of the building. When Beck visited only the south light was in use. The north tower had been decommissioned and the door was locked tight.

As the telling goes, Horace Beck--from whose account the article was drawn--had asked about the reason the door was locked and was told that many years prior a lighthouse keeper had hung himself in the north tower and, ever since, his ghost would roam through the tower, but also broke dishes, slammed doors, and caused equipment malfunctions; and that the only way to keep the ghost under control was to keep the door shut and locked. Beck was further told that a few years earlier a Coast Guard officer inspecting the facility had ordered that the door be unlocked, and that night all the lights had failed. After that, the door remained locked at all times. 

Red Cross: "Nuclear Explosion and Radiation Emergencies"

The Red Cross has a page with checklists and advice on surviving a nuclear explosion and subsequent sheltering from fallout: "Nuclear Explosion and Radiation Emergencies." 

Although intended for emergency managers and first responders, you might find the following 105 page FEMA guidance to be interesting: "Nuclear Detonation Response Guidance: Planning for the First 72 Hours."

Clearing The Round Over Bolt Jam

 Those of you running an AR style rifle should find this useful. 

 VIDEO: "Clearing round over the bolt "Death Jam" under 30 seconds."
Modern Tactical Shooting (3 min.)

Soros' County-By-County Invasion Plan

About a week ago, I published a post concerning a "bipartisan" bill called The State-Sponsored Visa Pilot Program Act of 2026 (S. 5197), sponsored by U.S. Senators John Curtis (R-UT) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ). The purpose of the bill was, ostensibly, to make it easier for small businesses, farmers, and ranchers to import cheap foreign labor. But is there more to it than just that? Lawrence Person's Battle Swarm blog discusses "County-By-County Soros Invasion Plans," noting that part of Soros' plan to turn red states into voting Democrat involved  plans to “enable local governments and private entities to sponsor immigrants directly”--which is what it appears Sen. Curtis' and Sen. Kelly's proposed bill would do. 

Israel Becomes Involved In Spying Scandal In Poland

Anonymous Conservative mentioned this in today's news brief.  "Israeli producer had access to data harvested by Poland using Pegasus spyware, say prosecutors"--Notes from Poland. According to the article, in 2017, Poland, under the government of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, purchased Pegasus cell phone spy software from an Israeli company, NSO Group. PiS used the software to spy on Poles, including its political opposition. But it has been discovered that "[d]ata harvested from mobile phones by the Polish authorities using Pegasus spyware were transmitted outside Poland and were accessible to the tool’s Israeli producer, Polish prosecutors have revealed as part of an investigation into the use of Pegasus under the former government." Also:

Prime Minister Donald Tusk says that the case is “one of the biggest scandals in Polish history since the fall of communism”, and that it is “beyond any doubt” that the Israeli firm behind Pegasus, NSO Group, cooperates with Israeli intelligence.     

The article goes on to explain that "Pegasus is a powerful and controversial tool that allows the extraction of large amounts of data from mobile phones without users’ knowledge. A number of countries have been found to have used it to spy on opposition figures." 

    Today, the National Prosecutor’s Office released its latest findings, based on analysis by experts at the forensic research office of Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW).

    The experts confirmed that Pegasus allowed the harvesting of emails, instant messaging and text messages; the content of telephone conversations, both via mobile networks and internet calls; browsing histories, calendars and contact lists; photos, videos and other files; and location data.

    “Additionally, Pegasus allowed the use of the device’s built-in microphone and cameras to record audio and video in real time and take screenshots,” reports the National Prosecutor’s Office.

 It's bad enough that the Polish government was using the spyware against its political opponents, but the disturbing part was that NSO and, by extension, the Israeli military and/or intelligence services also had the data:

    The ABW experts also highlighted serious concerns over management and security of the harvested data, noting that Poland’s Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA), which was responsible for using the spyware, “did not have full control over the Pegasus system”.

    “The CBA did not have passwords to access some accounts with administrative privileges and some system components remained under the control of the manufacturer [NSO],” wrote the prosecutor’s office. “The server module responsible for infecting mobile devices remained under the manufacturer’s exclusive control.”

    Data transmitted through the Pegasus system travelled outside Polish territory, through “servers located in various parts of the world”, in a network managed by NSO and “beyond the CBA’s control”, found the experts.   

 NSO is currently on a U.S. blacklist from U.S. government purchases (although this does not apply to other entities), but that hasn't stopped government agencies using other spyware. 

• See also: "What is Pegasus spyware, and how to detect and remove it"--Norton. 
• Related: "Georgia Bought a $954,578 Chevy, but Officials Won’t Say What’s Inside"--PJ Media. While Georgia officials are keeping mum about what it can do, it is believed to include equipment to surveil web activity, extract the contents of cell phones and track cell phone locations.
• Related: "Texas Police Bought Chevy Tahoes That Can Track Your Phone on the Highway"--Yahoo. An excerpt:

Four Chevy Tahoes do not cost $4.5 million. The vehicles themselves ran about $600,000 combined — roughly $150,000 each. The remaining $3.9 million bought something far more interesting: FalcoNet, an Israeli-built surveillance app from Cognyte that impersonates a cell tower and forces every phone in range to connect to it. Your phone can't tell the difference. Neither can anyone else's. This isn't about reading your texts — it's about knowing exactly where you are. 

(See also this article from The Drive). Undoubtedly, this information will also find its way to Israel. 

• Related: "Do Dealerships Put Trackers on Cars?"--GPX. The article also lists some of the common places dealerships will hide GPS trackers. 

The NFA Changes--Is It A Trap?

While the ATF's guidance indicating that it would no longer be enforcing certain NFA provisions is a welcome change, we all know that it could change on a political whim. So what happens if we get that SBR or sound suppressor using a standard 4473 form and a few years down the road a new administration changes its mind? Will we face criminal prosecution for having relied on the ATF's new guidance? In the video below, Washington Gun Law President and attorney William Kirk discusses the case law that suggests that we should be protected from prosecution based on reliance on the ATF's pronouncement.  

 VIDEO: "Are Gun Owners Stepping Into an NFA Trap?"
Washington Gun Law (13 min.)

Diversity Is Our Greatest Weakness

If you were to Google whether diversity is a strength or a benefit, you would find countless articles indicating that diversity improves efficiency or output or is otherwise beneficial. But a recent paper published in the journal Theory & Society debunks that claim. The paper is entitled "The diversity hypothesis: A rapid scoping review of diversity and scientific output and impact in the natural and social sciences," and the author conclude: "Based on over 100 scientific articles, we find that only between 15% and 28% of results reported in the literature are consistent with the hypothesis, with the balance of the results not being consistent with it. Based on this, the scientific evidence implies that the Diversity Hypothesis should be rejected." That is, studies that had considered diversity based on sex, nationality, race, age, LGBT, institution, and geography, overwhelmingly were inconsistent with the diversity hypothesis--that diversity is our greatest strength. The only type of diversity where it did not hold true--but even here showed mixed results--was diversity of disciplines. 

A Lesson Here For Those Who Open Carry

 The New York Post reports on a "Shocking video shows 2 women leap on top off-duty cop at gas station — before trying to snatch his gun." The officer, according to the article, was working his second job as a security officer at the gas station/convenience store when he was assaulted by two black women. The Post relates (bold added):

    The crazed brawl started when one of the suspects, 20-year-old Nayonna Griffin, threw items at the officer, prompting him to approach her, according to charging documents seen by KDSK.

    Fellow suspect Shaniya Lewis, also 20, then intervened and struggled with the officer before throwing him to the ground, according to the charging documents.

    Lewis repeatedly punched the officer in the face while Griffin stomped on his head, before Lewis reached for the officer’s gun but was unable to remove it from its holster, police said.

It's hard to tell much about the holster from the photographs other than it was a drop leg holster, but it must have had a good retention system. 

More Trans Violence

The New York Post reports: "Trans attacker fatally stabs man, breaks knife off in his skull after being mocked for using women’s bathroom at McDonald’s." To be clear, the man that Kelly Day murdered was not part of the group that had mocked him/her at the McDonald's. Rather, the fatal incident occurred hours later, after the murdered man--Larry Young--got into an argument with Day before walking away, crossing a street to a gas station. Day followed Young and started arguing with him again, before attacking him. "Surveillance footage shows Day holding a knife above Young as he lay on the ground, before allegedly stabbing him 13 times in the head, neck and upper shoulders, the Tribune reported." Day then apparently called 911, claiming he/she had acted in self-defense, before fleeing the scene. Day changed her story in a subsequent 911 call. She is being charged with first degree murder. 

An Evolutionary and Spiritual Dead End

    A frumpy feminist named Lindsey Harrington gives her excuses on why she is an old maid in "The Glorious Freedom of a Child-Free Life." There is a funny thing about this article. Harrington relates how she first began considering going child-free her whole life after meeting "Mandy, a Toronto filmmaker who moved to Newfoundland for cheap oceanside real estate" who regaled the author with her (Mandy's) "much less conventional existence, hitchhiking to Mexico with her blue heeler and eating fire in a travelling circus." Yet, having decided to follow in Mandy's footsteps, the article is completely devoid of any of the life experiences for which the author supposedly gave up children. Perhaps she mentions some in her book, from which this is excerpted, but the article seems bereft of details of her supposedly better life. 

    The other odd thing about the article is the author's cluelessness.  Harrington acknowledges the demographic decline as a result of childlessness, writing:

... Despite Canada’s comparatively rich social safety net and support programs, we have one of the lowest birth rates in the world: 1.25 children per woman in 2024. More of us are choosing differently. In this age of climate catastrophe, economic disparity and social unrest, not having children feels like the logical and ethical choice. As fascism, housing prices and sea levels rise, the future for any theoretical children looks bleak. It seems more and more possible you could end up raising them in some Cormac McCarthy–esque dystopia.   

Yet she ends with this idiotic observation: "We might be the first generation to widely question motherhood, but we won’t be the last." Yet, as far as Harrington's family line is concerned, she will be the last. And so it will be for many other families and nations. But perhaps it is for the best when it comes to people like Harrington: evolution in action, so to speak. 

Furor? They Should Be Shouting Approval

From the Daily Mail: "Furore as Marine commander who liberated the Falklands says: Machine-gun the migrants' boats." 

    The commander who led the land operation to liberate the Falklands has triggered a furore by saying that boats carrying migrants across the Channel should be machine-gunned.

    'I would shoot them,' Major-General Julian Thompson told a documentary about mass immigration to Britain.

    The Home Office warned today that anyone taking the law into their own hands would face 'serious criminal consequences', while the Tories stressed that 'opening fire on migrant boats would be completely wrong'.

Why do the Tories believe it would be wrong? Because, as Thompson points out, "They come over here and rape our girls." And that's what the Tories want.  

Almost Forget ... Happy Indigenous Peoples Day

Any normal, mentally healthy person knows today to be Columbus Day. But for Leftists, it is Indigenous Peoples' Day. So let's learn about one of those indigenous cultures for which the Leftists pine:

 VIDEO: "The Real Horror of Aztec Sacrifice"
Simple History (10 min.)

VIDEO: Speeding Up Your Pistol Reloads

In this video, Massad Ayoob discusses how speed up your pistol reloads focusing on issues of efficiency. But he also has some tips for those suffering from arthritis or other hand impairments. 

VIDEO: "Reload Like a Pro: Semi-Auto Pistol"
Massad Ayoob - Facts and Firearms (16 min.)

John Wilder's Latest: Vivek Ramaswamy And Indian Migrants

John's latest piece is entitled: "Vivek And Dinesh Crashout Over Lifting Children, Hilarity Ensues." The article begins by looking at Ramaswamy's so far failing bid to become the next governor of Ohio, and ends by looking at Indian tribalism and disdain for white people. An excerpt:

    So, Indians can’t yet really impact an election in Ohio.  But not if Ramaswamy has his way.  He wants to reform the H-1B visa program by removing the cap on the number of Indians that can get an H-1B, allow “meritocracy” (i.e., fake Indian degrees) set what “merit” is, and speed it all up.

    How fast?  Vivek wants the population of Ohio to go from 11.9 million today to 15 million by the time his first term of governor is done.  That’s nearly 30% in four years.  I’m betting he wants to use H-1Bs to do this, so he can have Kolkata on the Cuyahoga River, I guess.  Makes the place feel homey.   

Read the whole thing.  

France's Protests--A Harbinger Of What Is To Come

The New York Post reports: "France’s insane student protests are really about a growing radical Muslim population that wants to get rid of democracy." From the article (bold added):

    ... The French wrote the script of political street theater. One revolution was enough for the English and the Americans, but the French tolerance for mass disturbance is as high as their cholesterol.

    “What you’re doing is incredible,” Mélenchon said in an Oct. 6 message to the protestors. 

    Boyard, a k a Monsieur Non-Violence, was nothing if not faithful to this grand tradition when he led a mob of students at Paris-Est-Créteil University in singing France’s revolutionary marching song and national anthem, “La Marseillaise.” 

    But Boyard sang it surrounded by masked youths. And the flag he raised was not the red, white and bleu of le tricolore. It was the Palestinian flag.

    These riots are not just about France’s schools. They are the latest battle between the French state and the “New French,” France’s rapidly growing, poorly assimilated and heavily Muslim population. The French call them “immigrants” even though many of them are French-born.

    Long before Mayor Mamdani came to America and the DSA took out their student loans, the French saw the emergence of an Islamogauchiste (Islamo-leftist) alliance between the old radicals of the left and the angry youth of the banlieues, the peripheral housing estates.

    The same strategy created the voter base of the ruling Labour Party in the UK. In September, the strategy swung Sweden’s national elections and Berlin’s mayoral elections to left-wing parties that cultivate ethnic bloc votes. It has reshaped the Democrats’ ground game in states such as New York and Michigan.  

    Mélenchon may be happy to see the schools burn, but he knows his electoral math. The Immigration and Demography Observatory, a French think tank, predicts that on current trends, French citizens with no immigrant parent or grandparent will become a minority around 2050.

    Mélenchon, a 75-year-old ex-communist, is an old leftist but also a new immigrant. Born and raised in Morocco, he came to France in 1962, one among the millions who crossed the Mediterranean as Europe’s empires folded.   

The reality is that the new Left is not going to wait for the white European stock to peacefully die off.  

More: 

• "France school shooting: Pupil, 14, arrested after two teachers injured by shotgun fire"--The Independent. In addition to the shotgun, the student also had a hunting rifle. Authorities have no motive for the shooting, but nevertheless assure us that it had nothing to do with the riots.  
• "'Violent' fire destroys Enfants Rouges food market in Paris, officials say"--ABC News.  The market dates from 1615 and got its name from the red outfits worn by orphans housed at a nearby hospital, which closed in 1772. Nothing in the article links it to the riots, but burning stuff is the M.O. of the protestors. 
• "Protest on October 13: How many high schools closed in Paris and Île-de-France?"--Sortir à Paris. 

    In response to high school students’ demands, the Minister of National Education, Édouard Geffray, announced steps to improve coverage for absent teachers, including a plan to deploy 3,000 substitute teachers and extra resources for schools. Those announcements, however, did not quell the protest.

    Several union organizations, including FSU, UNSA Éducation, CGT Éduc'action, FO, CFDT and SUD Éducation, are urging people to participate in the mobilization on October 13. Students and their families are invited to check their high school communications and the digital workspaces to learn about the possible closures or timetable changes.

    The exact number of high schools closed in Paris and Île-de-France on Tuesday, October 13, is expected to become clearer as official announcements come in and the morning’s early tallies are updated. 

• "France’s October 17 Protests Seek to Unite Students, Unions and Yellow Vests"--Morocco News.  It reports:

    France is heading toward another day of social unrest on October 17, as trade unions, student activists, “yellow vests” and other movements seek to unite to protest against dysfunctions in education and public sectors, in addition to the cost of living. 

    The campaign titled “Yellow Vests and Youth, Our Struggles Meet,” calls on students, workers, farmers, firefighters, teachers, healthcare workers, climate activists, and pensioners to join forces. Organizers want to turn separate protests over education, wages, fuel prices, and public services into a broader movement against austerity and declining purchasing power. The campaign’s appeal also criticizes rising household expenses and what it describes as an unfair distribution of wealth.

    The General Confederation of Labour (CGT) has backed the high school and university protests, calling on its members to stand alongside young people during the October 13 mobilization. Its national leadership has also urged workers to organize workplace assemblies and build closer ties between student protesters and employees.