August 7, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Max Talk 026: Standing Reloads & Dropping Empty Mags"--Max Velocity Tactical (25 min.)

• This week's Woodpile Report is up.
• "357 Magnum vs 9mm For Concealed Carry."--Alien Gear Holster. This article is in line with some videos and other articles I've seen recently that show that, when comparing defensive ammo (i.e., ammo intended for use against another person, not hunting ammunition), there is little difference between .357 Magnum and 9 mm in ballistic gel tests.
• "How to Buy Your First Gun"--The Survivalist Blog. Most important point, in my opinion:

       You don’t have to know the specific model of gun you are setting out to buy, but you should know what you intend for the gun to do: Is it a handgun for defense? Great, so for concealed carry, just at-home defense, or both? If it is for carry, how do you plan to carry it on your body? Those questions will start to determine what size of handgun you need, and what caliber the gun should be.

       Do you need a gun for hunting? What kind of animal? Does it fly, walk or crawl? Will you want a shotgun or rifle for that? Both your game and hunting method, along with state laws, will dictate what type of long gun you should use and what its caliber should be also.

• "This Is What a Nuclear Bomb Looks Like"--New York Magazine. The article claims that a primitive nuke--a gun-type nuclear bomb--could fit in a van, and describes what would happen if such a low-yield weapon (10 kT) were detonated in Times Square. It also briefly looks at the impact of large weapons. Interesting read.
• "Antifa trains for violence. Forewarned is forearmed."--Bayou Renaissance Man. The article describes that "James O'Keefe has captured an Antifa instructor teaching members of the group how to attack and injure their opponents."
• Much as most people hate to admit it, race is a viable warning sign that should be considered when assessing risk or danger of a violent criminal attack: "Stranger Danger + Political Viagra"--The Anatomically Correct Banana. An excerpt:

        [A]ccording to the 2016 NYPD Crime and Enforcement Activity Report, 84.7% of all rapes in the city have a black or Hispanic suspect. The number of black perpetrators is far higher than the number of black victims. There are almost two white rape victims for every one white perpetrator. This suggests that about half of all white rape victims were raped by a non-white.

       This dramatic overrepresentation among blacks in rape rates is even more stunning when you consider the fact that black women are far less likely to report incidents of rape and sexual assault to the police than their white counterparts. In fact, black criminality in general is even worse than the damning statistics; one example, per the same NYPD report:  

       Blacks made up 47.6% of suspects, but only 40.6% of the suspects arrested. For petite larceny, 51.1% of suspects were black, but only 43.7% of the people arrested were black. 53.3% of the people stopped by the NYPD under the “Stop and Frisk” initiative were black. 59.7% of the people who were targeted that turned out to be a suspect in a violent crime were black. Whites and Asians were over-targeted while blacks were under-targeted.[1]

        According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), 27% of all perpetrators of sexual violence in the United States are black; blacks are 13% of the population overall. According to U.S. Justice Department figures over 34,460 white women are sexually assaulted or raped by black males each year, and most authorities believe that the actual rape figures are at least twice the reported number. The number of black female rapes by white men is “statistically negligible” because there are consistently fewer than ten cases nationally per annum. In fact, because white-on-black rape is so statistically insignificant and rare, the FBI has simply stopped tracking it altogether. John F. Gaski reports:

       About 90% of interracial violent crime in our nation is committed by blacks against whites. The black-on-white murder rate in the U.S. exceeds the white-on-black rate by about 2.5-to-1.  The black-on-white assault and battery rate exceeds the corresponding white-on-black rate in this country by at least 10-to-1.

Read the whole thing as it discusses other crime statistics, and looks at how Hispanics, too, are disproportionately represented in violent crime statistics.

• "NICS Firearms Checks"--FBI. The FBI has updated their NICS report to include July 2018. It shows over 1.8 million checks for July which is the second highest July since they started tracking the numbers. Although not all NICS checks lead to a firearm sale, it also doesn't catch sales in states where a CCL holder is not required to undergo a NICS check or person-to-person sales, so it probably is a fairly accurate, if conservative, figure for the number of gun sales. So why the continued high firearms sales? I could understand it for a while as representing pent up demand for anything that wasn't an AR (I think people were buying ARs over what they really wanted in the lead-up to the 2016 election). But you would think it would be over by now. Some of the sales are probably driven by new products: better concealed weapons, pistols capable of mounting red dot sights, inexpensive hunting rifles that shoot better than yesteryear's custom rifles, and so on. I think part of it is that people sense that something is going to come to a head.
• "Remember, You Wanted This"--Misfires and Light Strikes. The author writes:

       Right now, Red State Americans and Blue State Americans both seem hell-bent on starting Civil War 2.0, and there’s no one on either side asking themselves “Do we really want to do such things?”

      Which pretty much guarantees it’s going to happen.

      God help us all.

"Google 'Being Evil' in China?"--China Uncensored (12 min.)

Years ago, Google was raked over the coals for violating its "Don't Be Evil" policy when it attempted to expand into China. It pulled out of China (for several reasons), but last year Google dumped its "Don't Be Evil" policy and simultaneously began developing a version of its search software that would comply with Chinese Communist Party requirements for censorship. Worryingly, to curry CCP favor in the future, Google may expand that to include other countries--and may have already started to silence critics of the CCP.

• I'm not sure whether to categorize this as cultural enrichment or the consequences of living in a disarmed society--probably should be both: "Britain 2018: Record Knife Crime Rates Straining NHS, Depleting Blood Supplies"--Breitbart. The sudden surge over the last several years is being blamed on Theresa May's 2014 decision, when Home Secretary, to force police to reduce their number of stop and frisks because "their overuse was an affront to law-abiding black youths." (H/t Anonymous Conservative).
• "A serial cat killer has killed seven, displaying their mutilated bodies in public, Washington state cops say"--The News Tribune. Strangely, the killer is removing the spines of the animals. At some point, killing the animals won't be enough of a dopamine hit, and the killer will escalate.
• "ALL SIGNS POINT TO ONE MAN AS CHINESE SPY IN FEINSTEIN’S STAFF, AND HE WASN’T A DRIVER …"--The Daily Caller. Russell Lowe has worked for Feinstein for 20 years, when he was dismissed for passing information to the Chinese government. Feinstein originally claimed that Lowe was merely her driver. However, the DC's investigation ha reveled that "he was a staff liaison to the Asian-American community before leaving approximately five years ago." Fienstein is a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and was chairman of the Committee from 2009 to 2015.
• "Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States"--Motherboard. Supposedly sales stopped in 2006, but the vendor, Election Systems and Software, won't or can't confirm whether any machines still have the remote access capability. (H/t Anonymous Conservative).
• "The ATF Explains the Law Surrounding 3D-Printed Guns"--The Washington Free Beacon. From the article:

Knight [the ATF spokesman] said it is legal for Americans to build their own firearms without a license so long as they are not prohibited by law from possessing firearms, the firearms are legal to own, for personal use, and not for sale or transfer to others. Whether the gun parts are printed, created by other ways of manufacturing, or legally purchased from a licensed dealer has no impact on whether it is legal for an American to build a gun for personal use, though some states like California have placed additional requirements on the process.

• "China demolishes hundreds of churches and confiscates Bibles during a crackdown on Christianity"--Daily Mail. Part of the issue is that the Churches do not sufficiently worship President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party. According to the article, "[t]he crackdown on Christianity is part of a broader push by Xi to 'Sinicise' all the nation's religions by infusing them with 'Chinese characteristics' such as loyalty to the Communist Party."
• "Sex Neuroscientist Says Sex Differences Are Biological, Not A Social Construct"--The Federalist. 
• What the Brady's house really looks like: "Lance Bass says Bye, Bye, Bye to Brady Bunch house: NSYNC star is left 'heartbroken' after being outbid on $1.9million home from iconic TV series and claims he was 'USED' to drive up the value blasting agent as being 'ShadyAF'"--Daily Mail. If you are above a certain age, you probably watched the television show, The Brady Bunch, growing up. The producers used outdoor shots of the front of what they considered a "typical middle-class" house, which in no way resembled the interior sets used in the show. Similarly, the sets used for the back of the house also didn't match what the exterior shots of the front suggested. This article is interesting because it has both interior and rear exterior shots of the actual home. And, as you would expect, it in no way matches the sets.

August 6, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"WHY BLOCKING IS USELESS! A Las Vegas Cop Issues a Challenge and Teaches Some Lessons"--Funker Tactical (8 min.). This video argues that blocking, as generally taught in martial arts, is less effective and takes too long to process (using valuable time in the OODA cycle) compared to covering up and guarding. It also illustrates how guarding has a more universal application. Watch it and see what you think. 

• "The Distance Bias"--Active Response Training. Some thoughts about self-defense and using firearms at close or contact distances. I recommend that you read this article, and, if the topic interests you, then go and read the book "gunFight!" by Richard Nance. I have a review of the book, here.
• Defensive Pistol Craft has this month's list of articles and comments up. Lots of good articles and videos, and insightful comments. Check it out. One of his comments has to do with an article on cross-eye dominance. Jon writes:

     Just because you are right eye dominant does not mean you are going to be right eye dominant in combat (or any high stress situation).  I'm not an expert, but I'm sure your eye doctor or psychologist can explain to you all the circumstances that can change which image you perceive when you have both eyes open.  [It's not just right eye versus left eye.  It's also right field of vision versus left field of vision.  (Left brain processes right field of vision.  Right brain processes left field of vision.)  Actually, it's much more than that.  (Remember Inattentional Blindness?)  It's explained in visual perception psychology classes.  Yes, I spent way too much time in the psychology department as an under grad.]

      If you are right eye dominant and thus aiming with your right eye, but perceiving your left eye image at the moment you release your shot, your point of impact will be way off to the left of your intended target.  The only reliable way to prevent this is to close your non-aiming eye for the faction of a second it takes to release your shot.  (We are fighting Murphy's Law.  Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, at the worst possible time.)

      If you can't close your non-aiming eye while holding your aiming eye open, drill a deep hole into your front sight (blacken the hole with an indelible marker), insert a tritium vial (glue the glowing vial into place), so that your aiming eye can see it, but your non-aiming eye cannot see it.  Any competent machinist will be able to do this for you.  You must be able to distinguish the right eye image from the left eye image.

You can learn to close one eye when taking a shot. Although I am left handed, my father made shoot with right handed. I have learned to generally concentrate using my right eye when shooting, but sometimes I skip back to the left eye, so I still tend to wink my left eye when I take my shot. It is the one thing I've learned to appreciate with red dots is that I can keep both eyes open when I take the shot.

• "Rationing"--Blue Collar Prepping. A national crises or war will likely see the government resort to rationing. The author discusses the results of rationing, including the spread of black markets in the rationed goods. One point not mentioned is that rationing will also lead to a crackdown on "hording," including stockpiles that you might have put together long before any crises. You could have your stored items confiscated and/or be prosecuted. I have a short post about an actual incident of this in the United States in 1918. So remember your op-sec. 
• "EXPEDIENT FIELD GEAR REPAIRS OR 'FOR WANT OF A NAIL'"--American Partisan. The author shares some lessons learned about expedient repairs of the load bearing equipment using 550 paracord, as well as using glue and tape to repair footwear (while also warning that you don't want your foot wear to fail on you--keep it in good shape and replace when needed rather than pushing your luck). 
• "6 Concealed Carry Gun Myths Busted"--Alien Gear Holsters.

"Budget Prepping in a Small Apartment"--The Broke Prepper (12 min.)

First in a series of videos where the author discusses how he has put together preps while living in a small apartment with his wife. 

• A reminder that when anti-gunners say they just want to save the lives of children, they are lying: "Report: Abortion Accounts for 61% of Black Deaths in America"--Breitbart. If the lives of children were so important to them, they would be spending as much or more energy to outlaw abortion.
• It's about the control, not the guns: "Let’s drop the facade"--Firearms UK. The author notes:

      If you look at the history of Firearms legislation in the UK the 1920 Firearms Act the first real act that restricted the “right to bear arms in the UK” a right that existed for centuries and was indeed an inspiration behind the United States Second Amendment.

      The public was told this act was because of the threat of increased crime involving firearms. The real reason was the Government of the day feared an uprising of the working classes, many of whom would come back from the great war to poor quality housing, lack of jobs but skilled in warfare. There was a paranoia within Government fuelled by the recent Russian Revolution.

• Black Lives Matter ... Chicago style:

• "In less than 7 hours, 41 shot, 5 fatally as violence rips Chicago"--Chicago Tribune.

• "66 shot, 12 fatally, in Chicago weekend shootings"--ABC News.

• "The Full Scale of Chicago’s Gun Violence"--War Is Boring. Key point:

       In 2014, 42,417 people called the Chicago police to report shots fired. In 2015 that number rose to 46,996. Paralleling the spike in shootings in 2016, 67,160 people reported shots fired that year. Though still high, the number of people calling to report shots fired in 2017 dropped to 55,584. Again, this reduction parallels the drop in persons shot in 2017.

      This means that the number of people actually shot in 2016, for example, only accounts for six percent of the number of people calling to report shots fired in their neighborhood.

• "It's time to hold Democrats responsible for Chicago's violence"--American Thinker. From the article:

       Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit has retweeted an invaluable article from the January 2012 issue of Chicago magazine about how the city's famed violence is all the result of gangs and Democrats being in bed with each other, one hand washing the other, and in those very districts named above.  Democratic politicians sidle up to gang leaders for votes and use their thugs as substitutes for their political organizations.  They muscle voters to the polls for the Democrats, and anyone who rebels gets a beating.  Gang leaders in turn make demands of politicians for protection from police and get flows of city funds from these same Democrats, generally as city subcontractors, calling it "jobs for youth" and "second chances" or something.  The left benefits, so it gives the gangs what they want.

       Is this a revolting picture?  Obviously, with the stepped up shootings, the Democrats don't seem to be worrying too much, given that they have the votes and deals they want, so word is out that they aren't going to do anything.  Meanwhile, the cops have been ordered to stand down because of the political ties of the gangs, and word has gotten out about that, too.  Now the gangs are challenging each other because Democrats have made the power so easy to get.

• "American Pravda: The Bolshevik Revolution and Its Aftermath"--The Unz Review. From the article:

       Once I checked around a little, I discovered that numerous mainstream accounts described the enormous hostility of Schiff towards the Czarist regime for its ill-treatment of Jews, and these days even so establishmentarian a source as Wikipedia’s entry on Jacob Schiff notes that he played a major role financing the Russian Revolution of 1905, as was revealed in the later memoirs of one of his key operatives. And if you run a search on “jacob schiff bolshevik revolution” numerous other references come up, representing a wide variety of different positions and degrees of credibility. One very interesting statement appears in the memoirs of Henry Wickham Steed, editor of The Times of London and one of the foremost international journalists of his era. He very matter-of-factly mentions that Schiff, Warburg and the other top Jewish international bankers were among the leading backers of the Jewish Bolsheviks, through whom they hoped to gain an opportunity for the Jewish exploitation of Russia, and he describes their lobbying efforts on behalf of their Bolshevik allies at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference following the end of the First World War.

       Even the very recent and highly skeptical 2016 analysis in Kenneth D. Ackerman’s 2016 book Trotsky in New York, 1917 notes that U.S. Military Intelligence reports of the period directly made that astonishing claim, pointing to Trotsky as the conduit for the heavy financial backing of Schiff and numerous other Jewish financiers. In 1925 this information was published in the British Guardian and was widely discussed and accepted throughout the 1920s and 1930s by numerous major media publications, long before Schiff’s own grandson provided a direct confirmation of those facts in 1949. 

• Chinese colonialism: "What Is China Doing In Africa?"--Forbes. The author writes: "The reason Chinese corporations are in Africa is simple; to exploit the people and take their resources. It’s the same thing European colonists did during mercantile times, except worse. The Chinese corporations are trying to turn Africa into another Chinese continent. They are squeezing Africa for everything it is worth." True. European colonists at least believed in the concept of the "white man's burden," and endeavored, to some extent at least, to improve the lot of the average African. I doubt that the Chinese Communist Party labors under a similar constraint. 

Indonesian Earthquake

"Big Earthquake Hits Big Volcano"--Suspicious Observers (2 min.)

Some pre-earthquake indicators.

According to the latest report from The Daily Mail, the earthquake, which struck the island of  Lombok, has killed at least 140 people. The island of Bali was also affected by the earthquake, with significant damage to some structures. There are reports that a number of people are trapped in a collapsed mosque. Photographs show thousands lining beaches waiting to be rescued.

Are You A "Gundamentalist"?

Hold on to your hats! The NRA is under attack by "gundamentalists." At least according to this Reuters article, "Hardline U.S. 'gundamentalists' pressure NRA from within." The article reports:

        Adam Kraut, a gun rights lawyer, fell about 4,000 votes short of the 71,000 needed for election, but earned 5,000 more than the previous year, a sign of the growth of the Second Amendment purists within the NRA known to many as “gundamentalists.” 

        With opinion polls showing U.S. public support for more gun control growing in the wake of mass shootings in recent years, the NRA is facing internal pressure from this little-known force that is demanding that the leadership concede zero ground to gun-control advocates. 

       Its rise has rattled the NRA leadership and threatens the association’s ability to hold on to moderate supporters and to make compromises that might help fend off tougher gun control measures, according to some of the two dozen gun-rights activists, policy experts and gun-control advocates interviewed for this story.

The article adds:

The NRA leadership has put up obstacles to Kraut’s election, both with bylaws that make it harder for candidates not put forward by the nominating committee to get elected to the board, and by enlisting a senior member to campaign against him.

The opposition to Kraut is because "[h]e has campaigned for the NRA to push for even more expansive gun-rights laws," and "[h]e wants to change NRA bylaws, such as imposing term limits for board members and mandatory meeting attendance, to renew its leadership."

     I consider myself fairly well read as to gun issues, but I had never heard of the term "gundamentalists" prior to this article. According to the Urban Dictionary, its definition is "[t]he worship of guns; a modern religion based on buying, owning, carrying and shooting large numbers of firearms in situations where they are not really necessary." Apparently the word is taken from the title of a 2017 book by James E. Atwood entitled Gundamentalism and Where It Is Taking America. According to one review of the book, "[i]t is a moral and theological critique of a society that seems out of touch with reality on this matter and is politically deaf to the will of the great majority of Americans – including most gun owners – for reasonable laws that respect responsible gun use while limiting the human damage of today’s powerful weapons." As is generally the case for the modern anti-gunner, Atwood claims to be an avid hunter. But his additional "qualification" is that he is a retired Presbyterian preacher. So, after the usual anti-gun polemics, the book apparently takes a theological bent. According to the review cited earlier:

[The book] looks at the powerful psychology for many people in gun ownership; they come to regard a gun as an instrument of control and destiny. It thus becomes a form of idolatry. Indeed, the word “gundamentalism” is appropriated by the author to describe the ideology of “the divine right of guns in America.” He ponders how the gun industry and those acting on its behalf have made the Second Amendment of the Constitution an instrument to paralyze government action to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of the mentally incompetent, the criminally inclined and those motivated by bigotry and racism who would challenge American governance and institutions.

 Yeah, its not like there are federal and state laws prohibiting felons and those declared incompetent from possessing firearms ... except there are. And Atwood must not have bought a firearm in quite a while if he is not aware of the NICS back ground checks required for purchasing a firearm. Or maybe he is being intentionally dishonest. There is a thought.

      The reviewer goes on to describe that "Atwood argues that this ideology has produced a 'gun empire' that fosters fear and insecurity in the American public to justify the logic and profit of 'arming everyone.' Such a commercial goal has fed the increase of violence and division across the nation – much of it based on racial animosity – that greatly complicates effective policing and crime fighting." It isn't racial animosity that results in the high number of young black men killing other young black men. It's called gang violence, and it is primarily limited to those cities with the greatest concentrations of minority groups living under Democratic party bosses.

      While Atwood's book appears, from the review, to be just another in a long line of anti-self-defense obfuscations, there is a particular point of which you should take note because, I suspect, we will be seeing it raised more frequently. That is, Atwood argues that gun ownership has become "a form of idolatry." In fact, we saw this just the other day in Jana Reiss's article condemning gun ownership among Mormons. She quotes from an article by Spencer W. Kimball on the topic of "The False Gods We Worship." After a lengthy discussion of past and present types of idolatry, Kimball wrote:

We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel—ships, planes, missiles, fortifications—and depend on them for protection and deliverance. 

Obviously Kimball was talking about the vast sums devoted to "national security" each year, and makes no reference to individual firearms or defending our families. But the implication that Reiss makes is that the homeowner that purchases a firearm for self-defense, or the citizen that carries concealed, is engaging in a form of idolatry, placing his or her faith in an object rather than the Lord.

      While it is true that Christ stated “[t]hinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?”, (Matt. 26:53.), he also told his disciples but a few hours earlier, "he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." (Luke 22:36). The difference is that in case of legions of angels, he was explaining why his disciples shouldn't try to prevent his arrest; while the purchase of the swords was for the disciples to be able to defend themselves.

      While there are some examples of God or his angels striking down an enemy, most of the examples are more prosaic, with the Lord strengthening those fighting with earthly weapons to overcome an enemy. I wonder if the victims of the Haun's Mill massacre thought angels would intervene after they gave up their weapons to their attackers? And I fail to find examples in the scriptures where the Lord has directly intervened to stop a common mugging or burglary. "God helps those who help themselves," goes the saying, and that is the circumstance under which most of us live.

    Getting back to the subject at hand, I suspect that we will see this theme--gun ownership as a form of idolatry--increasingly asserted by those in our congregations who are opposed to self-defense, and mayhap even preached from our pulpits. Be prepared to counter it. As for the LDS Church, and others, one response may well be to point out the use of locks or other physical security, including armed security or guards and the quick question of whether these are also idol worship. Christ constantly pointed out how his critics were hypocrites, and it is an effective rhetorical tool even today.

     And, as one reader commented the other day, we are commanded that we should protected our families:

       The Book of Mormon, Alma 43:47, states: "And again, the Lord has said that: Ye shall defend your families even unto bloodshed. Therefore for this cause were the Nephites contending with the Lamanites, to defend themselves, and their families, and their lands, their country, and their rights, and their religion." 

       The Doctrine and Covenants, 134:11, states: "We believe that men should appeal to the civil law for redress of all wrongs and grievances, where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property or character infringed, where such laws exist as will protect the same; but we believe that all men are justified in defending themselves, their friends, and property, and the government, from the unlawful assaults and encroachments of all persons in times of exigency, where immediate appeal cannot be made to the laws, and relief afforded."

 Forewarned is forearmed, so be prepared to counter this argument.

Not All Dogs Go To Heaven

    The Truth About Guns has posted an article entitled "Neighbors Divided Over Defensive Dog Shooting: 'Why Do You Need Your Gun in the Morning?'" Unfortunately, we only have one side of the story, that being from the owner of the dog that was shot. Based on that, however, it appears that the facts are as follows:

(Source)

    An off-duty police officer was walking his dog one fine morning, when a neighbor's dog approached and the two dogs started growling and barking at one another. Although it is against the law, the neighbor had let her dog off  leash, and apparently she did not have verbal control of her dog. The officer tried to get her dog away by grabbing its collar, but it slipped out of the collar. By that time, the woman had approached and was told by the officer that if she didn't get her dog, he was going to shoot it. She claims that as she was starting to step closer to get control of her dog, the officer draw a pistol and shot her dog. The article then continues with comments from neighbors generally decrying the shooting, with one lone voice agreeing that the dog should not have been allowed off-leash.

    In going to the original news story, we aren't told the respective breeds of dog, but it indicates that the officer's dog was a small breed and that the dog that was shot, named "Bandit," was a large breed.

    Considering the paucity of facts, I hate to second guess the officer's actions. Some dogs are very territorial and aggressive, so I could see this as being more than simply two dogs growling and barking at one another. My experience is that if a dog is simply being loud it will generally keep some distance, so the fact that the deceased dog was close enough for the officer to grab suggests that this was an attack rather than a show of dominance.

    Some of the comments by neighbors were laughable. For instance, one neighbor told the reporter: "Why do you need a gun in the morning? Who's going to assault you?" As if violence and danger only work the graveyard shift.

    Another clueless neighbor said, "I have resolved [situations involving aggressive dogs] with a spray bottle and an aggressive stance, yelling, ‘no.’ There has to be another way to de-escalate a situation without someone or someone’s animal being shot and killed first.” Well, the officer had grabbed the collar and tried to pull the dog away, so he had at least tried to resolve the situation short of shooting the dog. Now the article doesn't state whether the officer took an aggressive stance and yelled "No," but my experience is that dogs often ignore shouts.

     For instance, I was walking my dog one evening years ago, when we were approached by a Rottweiler that was off-leash. The Rottweiler was not wagging its tale, nor was it growling, but it was making an obvious bee-line toward my dog. I stepped forward (the aggressive stance) and yelled "no" and "go away" a few times and it completely ignored me until it got close enough that I slapped it alongside the head. It then stopped, although it did not leave.

    Another time, I was walking my dog late in the evening, when a pit bull approached behind us. I first heard the clicking of its nails on the sidewalk, and turned. I think I shouted at it quickly to no avail, but I also flicked out my collapsible baton which is what made it stop; then it stood there and started barking. I would occasionally encounter this dog (always off leash with no owner around) at other times, but it would keep its distance and just bark.

    To be honest, the aggressive stance seems to work better on the dog owner, if they happen to be around, than on an aggressive dog. For example, a couple years ago, I was walking my dog along a pedestrian trail and approached a woman (it's almost always a woman) who had let her dog off leash, and which was jumping up and down trying to bite a dog that another person was holding in her arms. The owner of the aggressive dog was saying the normal B.S. about her dog being friendly and wouldn't bite even as it was jumping and snapping its jaws. As we approached, the dog turned and started toward me and my dog. I stepped in front and dropped into a deep fighting crouch (it was only a medium sized dog, but I didn't want it knocking me over) and got my hands in a guard position ready to punch it if it should come too close. I also told the woman to get her dog or I was going to kill it. At that point, the owner finally decided to call her dog back and put a leash on it, the whole time claiming that the dog wasn't a danger.

    Despite the fact that it is not uncommon to read about people and/or their pets being attacked and mauled by dogs, there seems to be group of people that just can't seem to acknowledge that truth. The most common refrain I hear (and, it even shows up in the comments to the TTAG article cited above) is that "there are no bad dogs, only bad owners." Frankly, I don't even know what this means since there are, as I noted, plenty of examples of dogs attacking and killing people. I suspect that what people mean by this is that the dogs aren't morally culpable for bad behavior and, therefore shouldn't be punished for it; similar to bleeding heart liberals that defend murderers by saying it was because of abuse the murderer received as a child, or something else wrong with the murderer's upbringing. Well, that is all fine and good if you are trying to understand how a cute, innocent baby grows up to be a 180 pound thug with no conscience, or how that adorable puppy is now a vicious animal, but it has no bearing on stopping an attack. Certainly, in the above story, if the officer had instead shot the neighbor there is no guarantee it would have stopped the dog attack.

    Besides which, I have had a lot of animals over the course of my life and I can tell you that, animals have individual personalities. Even raised under nearly identical conditions, dogs can have widely divergent behavioral patterns and preferences or dislikes. In addition, at heart, they are still predators. So that loving animal that lays at your feet as you watch TV that "wouldn't hurt a fly," can on its own or with other dogs, decide to take down a sheep or calf, or kill a smaller animal, or even attack a human.

LDS Church: Surviving an Active Shooter

         Maybe I've just been too tied up with work lately, but I didn't see anything in the news about the July 22, 2018, shooting at an LDS church in Fallon, Nevada. Based on reports, the shooter, John Kelley O'Connor had entered an LDS church prior to services, then after services had started, shot Charles E. "Bert' Miller several times, killing him. O'Connor then left the church building to return to his house nearby, where he later surrendered to police. The two men knew each other, but police have not yet determined a motive according to the news reports I've read.

        Of course, certain liberal members went into histrionics over the incident, attempting to draw from it some grand theory that church members have a problem with guns, and Utah Mormons in particular need to accept more gun control. What Fallon, Nevada, has to do with Utah, I don't know, but the author of the cited article did graduate from Columbia University, so her world view is probably very limited. In any event, as anyone with lick of sense knows, "[a] blanket ban or making it hard to acquire guns, as history provides evidence, does not necessarily make the world safer. It mostly identifies who has power and who doesn’t."

      The Church has a gun policy that discourages, but does not outright ban, weapons. It states: "Our chapels are dedicated for the worship of God and as havens from the cares and concerns of the world. The carrying of lethal weapons, concealed or otherwise, within their walls is inappropriate except as required by officers of the law." However, activities involving firearms, including those for merit badges, cannot be conducted on Church property. If you can't tell by now, the Church is self insured. In any event, the Church apparently has stated that it doesn't have any plans to change its policies in response to this shooting. There is a certain irony to this as Brigham Young warned members:

As for this people fostering to themselves that the day has come for them to sell their guns and ammunition to their enemies, and sit down to sleep in peace, they will find themselves deceived and before they know, they will sleep until they are slain. They have got to carry weapons with them, to be ready to send their enemy to hell cross lots, whether they be Lamanites or mobs who may come to take their lives, or destroy their property. We must be prepared that they dare not come to us in a hostile manner without being assured they will meet a vigorous resistance and ten to one they will meet their grave.

      In Utah, people are prohibited by law from carrying a concealed weapon into LDS churches or buildings (it has to do with organizations being able to register their premises as non-permissive environments and not some perquisite limited to just the LDS Church). So employees and volunteers do not completely feel like sitting ducks, the Church does offer on-line training on "Surviving an Active Shooter" (Flash required). It is a series of slides, with a short video mid-way through that apparently was produced by the Houston P.D., and followed up with a short quiz. (I have to appreciate the dark humor of whoever edited the video, because it shows the active shooter walk right past a sign prohibiting firearms on the premises). It teaches the near universal "run, hide, fight" tactics popular with risk managers throughout the corporate world and government. But if you're disarmed, I guess there is not much more you can do.

August 3, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Resist or Comply Fully, Do Not Be Indecisive!"-- Active Self Protection (6 min.).

An armed robbery of a convenience store in Mexico goes badly for three of the victims. The clerk fled the scene as soon as she could, but the three men that were customers didn't seem to take the criminal or his threat seriously, and all three ended up being shot and dying of their wounds.

• TGIF: "Weekend Knowledge Dump- August 3, 2018"--Active Response Training.
• For the woodworkers among you: "Training Aids: Barricades"--The Firearm Blog. This article not only discusses why you might want to train using barricades, but also contains plans and instructions on how to build your own.
• On one hand: "Why I Switched to Double Action Semi-Autos"--Lucky Gunner. The author explains:

       First, I carry in the appendix inside the waistband position, so if I do make a mistake when I’m re-holstering, my femoral artery is right there, and… that could be really bad. I use a safe re-holstering technique that greatly mitigates that risk, but I like the extra layer of safety I get from being able to ride the hammer with my thumb while I’m re-holstering.

       Second, I do a lot of shooting. I’m at the range at least once a week and that comes out to thousands of repetitions in and out of the holster and each one of those is an opportunity to make a potentially fatal mistake. Again, the most common accidents at the range are a lot less likely with a traditional double action pistol.

        Third, watching other people shoot has relieved me of any delusion that anyone’s gun handling is always 100% safe. I’ve taken over 300 hours of firearms training from more than 30 different instructors. I know that even experienced and well-trained people can occasionally slip up because I’ve seen them do it. And if they’re capable of getting a little get sloppy on a shooting range, then I’m sure I can do it under the stress of a deadly force encounter. And really, I know I can get careless every now and then because I’ve seen myself do stuff on video I have no recollection of doing. Things like getting my finger on the trigger a just little too early when the gun comes out of the holster. Using a pistol with a double action trigger is not a substitute for trying to correct that behavior, but it’s a good redundancy to have, especially when you consider that we’re often not aware of the stuff we might be doing that is unsafe.

       Finally, I have a really low tolerance for bad triggers. Most factory triggers in striker fired guns are pretty terrible. I can shoot these pistols, but not nearly as well as I would like and really, I don’t know many shooters who are performing at a high level who leave their striker fired pistols completely stock, either. It’s really common to try to improve these guns with different aftermarket parts or custom work to try to make them more shootable. But it’s really hard to do that without compromising the guns in some way that makes them more susceptible to an unintentional discharge.

        With a DA/SA gun, even if I get a really nice custom trigger, I still have the safety of the long length of travel on that first double action shot. I spent most of last year shooting revolvers, so that DA trigger was a natural thing for me to transition to, and that’s a big part of why I chose double action guns rather than a single action or striker fired gun with a manual thumb safety.

• On the other hand: "DA/SA: NOT THE BEST CHOICE FOR NEWER SHOOTERS"--Civilian Gunfighter. The author has two primary points that he raises. The first is that he has seen too many shooters try to re-holster a DA/SA or move while holding a DA/SA, without first applying a safety or decocking the hammer. The second has to do with learning two different trigger pulls:

The other major issue with DA/SA pistols is the fact that the user must practice the two different trigger presses.  That DA first shot, in a self-defense scenario, will probably be the most important shot the user takes.  As Paul Howe said in that article linked above, many shooters of DA/SA pistols throw away that first shot.  The two different trigger presses also means that the user must be able to transition from the one press (DA) to the other (SA) seamlessly.  Many shooters cannot do so.

The flaw with his argument, as to the first point, is pointed out in the comments, which is that SA pull on many DA/SA pistols are not much different from that on striker fired pistols. The author's response? "

1. It’s not just the pull weight, but the pull distance. On a stock Glock, for example, the distance the trigger must travel is more than the SA pull of a DA/SA pistol.

2. No DA/SA pistol has the type of trigger safety we are used to seeing on Glocks with the dingus or the M&P series with the hinge. While they are annoying, I do believe that they achieve at least some of what they set out to do.

So, the mushiness of the striker fire trigger is a safety feature? As for the second point in his reply, the trigger safety on striker fired pistols has nothing to do with preventing the trigger from being accidentally pulled during a reholster, but to keep the weapon from discharging if dropped.

• Cultural enrichment and white knighting in Spain: "Shocking moment street traders WHIP an American tourist with a belt ‘when he tries to stop them hurling insults at a woman pushing a pram’ in Barcelona"--Daily Mail. While I admire the man's bravery to confront the troop of African migrants harassing a woman, he was outnumbered and they easily were able to swarm around him and drive him away. He was lucky to get away with minor injuries. You can't deliver an educational beatdown when its just you against a dozen or more.
• "Gun Review: Smith & Wesson 360J Japanese Service Revolver"--The Truth About Guns. The 360J is the current selection for a service revolver for Japanese police officers. It is a 5-shot .38 Special +P based on the S&W J-frame. This rather lengthy article does not just review the revolver, but also gives a post-WWII history of service revolvers and pistols in Japan and the considerations that went into the testing and selection. The author also attempts to explain why Japan has historically limited civilian ownership of firearms. One thing I thought was interesting was one of the criteria for selecting the revolver was its accuracy over a semi-auto pistol. In this regard, the author notes:

The manual of arms is to cock the hammer during the draw from the holster with the support hand or thumb and fire single action. The double action pull is considered unacceptably inaccurate in a confrontation. This is considered a design issue and not a training issue.

That was the manual of arms most everywhere until the 1930s.

"What If You Detonated a Nuclear Bomb In The Marianas Trench? (Science not Fantasy)" (6 min.)

Of course, no one would do this--they would detonate nukes closer to shore where the vaporized water "bubble" would not collapse back into itself. But still an interesting video.

• It's always good to keep an eye on what the adversary is planning: "Testing Bishops for Skills, Aptitude, and Narcissism"--By Common Consent. The author's expertise apparently is that he was once a bishop, had a nervous breakdown and left the church while undergoing therapy for the next 10 years. Most of his article is about how beneficial it would be to test bishops to determine if they had the skills and temperament to be bishops. But here is where the true motive peeks forth:

If we paid more attention to what a bishop really does and should do and the character traits and training necessary, we would reduce the pool of qualified men.  That has costs and benefits.  At the same time, I believe it would become obvious to everybody that there are qualified women among us. (underline added).

• "The End Game Of The Sexual Revolution Was Always This"--Château Heartiste.  Posters promoting acceptance of pedophilia were spotted, and photograph of one posted to Twitter. Commenting on the poster, CH explains:

       The Fuggernaut doesn’t have an “off” button. It was never gonna stop at [the Pill] [legal abortion] [free condoms] [buttplug usage seminars] [rapefugee welcoming], and go no further.

       Turning back the clock by force is the inevitable conclusion to this tragic, predictable story.

• On a related note, in reading an article by Rod Dreher at The American Conservative concerning the sexual molestation/priest scandal in the Lincoln, Nebraska, diocese, he related the following:

     The Catholic writer Ron Belgau, who leads the “Spiritual Friendship” movement of gay Christians who live celibately, in obedience to Scripture, notes on Facebook that the Diocese of Lincoln was the only diocese in the US to refuse to participate in the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ auditing program for the sexual abuse of minors ...

     Exactly so. Conservative Catholics are right to point out the role of secretive, sexually active gay cliques within the Church, and how they advance dysfunction and abuse. 

Of course, that is what a lot of people on the right have been warning about is that there are these "cliques"--conspiracies, secret combinations, etc.--all over.

• Related: "'There's going to be a raid': A Chilean prosecutor forces Catholic Church to give up secrets"--Reuters. The article reports:

       Police and prosecutors were staging simultaneous raids on Church offices less than a mile away from the university and outside the capital, looking for evidence of sex crimes the Church had not reported to police.

       The surprise sweeps, ordered by Emiliano Arias, a provincial prosecutor, marked the start of what experts who track sex crimes in the Roman Catholic Church say is one of the most aggressive investigations ever undertaken by a judicial authority anywhere in the world.

      Since that cold June afternoon there have been five more raids on Church offices to seize documents, phones, tablets and computers, leaving the Vatican scrambling to respond to a rapidly unfolding scandal that is the worst image crisis of Francis’ papacy, now in its sixth year.

(H/t Anonymous Conservative)

• "New York Times Hires Left-Wing Writer With Long History Of Racist Tweets"--The Federalist.  Sarah Jeong really, really hates white people and, especially, white men, and is very public about her hatred. So, of course, she fits right in at The New York Times.
• "Viktor Orbán Is Europe’s Future"--Rod Dreher at The American Conservative. Quoting Orban:

I have formulated five tenets for the project of building up Central Europe. The first is that every European country has the right to defend its Christian culture, and the right to reject the ideology of multiculturalism. Our second tenet is that every country has the right to defend the traditional family model, and is entitled to assert that every child has the right to a mother and a father. The third Central European tenet is that every Central European country has the right to defend the nationally strategic economic sectors and markets which are of crucial importance to it. The fourth tenet is that every country has the right to defend its borders, and it has the right to reject immigration. And the fifth tenet is that every European country has the right to insist on the principle of one nation, one vote on the most important issues, and that this right must not be denied in the European Union. In other words, we Central Europeans claim that there is life beyond globalism, which is not the only path. Central Europe’s path is the path of an alliance of free nations.

• "Carroll Quigley's Conspiracy Theory: The Milner Group"--The Unz Report.

        Academic historians dislike the concept that history is often made by groups of individuals plotting together in confidence, even though one obvious way to get big things done is to make plans with your friends and allies while keeping your rivals in the dark as long as possible.

       One exception is the late Georgetown history professor Carroll Quigley, who in 1949 completed a book rather grandly entitled The Anglo-American Establishment.

      Decades later Bill Clinton was an undergrad student of Quigley (he got a B from him). In Clinton’s 1992 acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, he cited Quigley as an inspiration.

       In reality, Quigley’s book, which wasn’t published until much later, was only very tangentially related to American institutions such as the Council of Foreign Relations. It actually focused on one group of British establishmentarians, the progressive imperialists who set up the British equivalent of the CFR, the Royal Institute of International Affairs (a.k.a., Chatham House), edited The Times of London for most of the first four decades of the 20th Century, and largely controlled the peculiarly influential All Souls College at Oxford.

      Quigley calls them the Milner Group after Alfred Milner (1854-1925), an eminence grise who more or less started the Boer War of 1899-1902, then mentored “Milner’s Kindergarten” of bright young men in running South Africa, and finally popped up again in Lloyd George’s five-man war cabinet in 1917. But Milner mostly served behind the scenes.

       Quigley traces the Milner Group back to the far more colorful Cecil Rhodes’ desire to start a “Secret Society” to promote Angl0-American unity and global domination. In the first five wills written by the mining tycoon of southern Africa, Rhodes (1853-1902) called for his estate to fund a secret society to reunify America with Britain and promote Anglo settlement of the world. 

Read the whole thing. Those that refuse to acknowledge the actions of key men in influencing history, or even contriving outcomes, are being silly. For example, in a diplomatic history of Europe class I took in college, the professor took the position that "great men" did make history, and frankly much of the time frame of the class (from about 1870 to the close of WWII) involved the machinations of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck to unify Germany, keep its enemies at bay, maintain peace on the Continent, and how it all fell apart following his eventual removal from office. 

• "Q’s Tripcodes Linked To Books"--Anonymous Conservative. AC explains:

       The summary is, somebody found that if you searched a full list of Q’s tripcodes or User ID’s in Google Books, every one turns out one or more books, and some turn out specific pages of a book.

      It is an interesting find, since some of the books are seemingly related to Q’s topics. One is titled Where We Go One We Go All. Another is titled The Story of Q. It seems unlikely that is by chance. Some are about Trump, others are about conspiracies, others are stories which revolve around mysterious abductions, others cover crimes against children, and several are about extraterrestrial issues, and how the political environment will change if there is disclosure. Behold A Pale Horse is even in there, as is a book by Devin Nunes. Some are on the secret government and the role of the CIA in forming it and manipulating affairs from in the shadows, and there is even a book maintaining 9/11 was actually a ritualistic sacrifice performed by Luciferians.

August 2, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around The Web

"ATM Robbery In Florida Shows Need For Empty-Handed Skills"--Active Self Protection (6 min.)

John Correia refers to ATMs as "accessories to muggings" because they are such prime spots for bad guys to hang out. We took a look at the surveillance video of this incident some time back, but now we have Correia's input on it. If you remember, this was a guy that was mugged just after getting money from an ATM. He threw the money on the ground and then attempt to overpower his assailant when the assailant bent to pick up the money. For his troubles, the victim was shot in the chest and later died. Correia discusses the considerations for a successful disarm, and notes that you need to be spiritually prepared (i.e. right with your loved ones and with Jesus) in the event you are killed in an incident.

• If you haven't read through it yet, check out the Woodpile Report for this week. One point that Ol' Remus mentions that deserves special consideration: 

There will be war. War is inevitable, and it will probably take place on a global scale. There has never been any movement of people of human history even one-tenth as large as the post-1965 invasion of the United States that has not either a) led to war, or b) been imposed by lethal force as the result of war. I believe the die is already cast, as do more than a few military historians of my acquaintance.

• And don't forget Grant Cunningham's Hump Day Reading List for this week.
• How sad. Tiger McKee writes: "I’ve mentioned here that I’m not a big fan of plinkin’ or shooting for fun.  If I have to shoot it’s because lives depend on it." Shooting is a lot of fun, and to ignore that is just to make your life less rich.
• You might want to print this one or save it as a PDF: "CACHING YOUR GUNS FOR A CIVIL WAR PARTS I-IV"--Loose Rounds. Lots of good information. First, there is this point:

First, if you live in a state with licensing and registration, you’re screwed. Even if they don’t have all your weapons in their files, they know you have weapons. They can come and shake down your home and curtilage at their leisure. Registration and Licensing doesn’t solve crimes, and it certainly doesn’t prevent them. It is one thing only: a cheat sheet for confiscation.  For that, it’s the cat’s pajamas.

If you buy a firearm having filled out a form 4473, you are screwed as well, or if you have a CCL. Nevertheless, if you want to proceed with caching, he notes that "[t]he enemies of your cached weapons, dear insurgent, are many. They are rust, and its valkyries water and air; construction and development; discovery; documentation; human frailty; and obsolescence."

         Several weeks ago I was watching some videos on the results of people's caches, and water intrusion and rust were the biggest problem. Also, because some of the people were burying food, another problem that came up was freeze/thaw cycles causing containers to burst--bury your cache below the frost line.

        Anyway, read the whole thing.

• Nice: "A Bradenton cop didn’t rush to a shooting call. She said it didn’t meet her standards"--Bradenton Herald. This woman was made a sergeant earlier this year. From the article:

      Schwartz, had been assigned as the primary officer to the call by dispatch but never activated her lights or sirens nor did she speed to the scene, according to the internal affairs report.

      Instead, Schwartz drove below the speed limit at times, stopped multiple times for traffic lights and stop signs and even pulled over as her own sergeant passed her by with his lights and sirens, according to the internal affairs report.

     When confronted by her sergeant at the crime scene, Schwartz said she never responds in emergency mode unless another officer is down or asks for help, according to the report.

She was suspended. Looking at her and her record, she was obviously an affirmative action hire.

• "Non-Visual Target Indicators"--Deft Systems. It is easy to spend a small fortune on camouflaged clothing and cerakoting firearms and other equipment to reduce our vision "target indicators," but there are other considerations such as smell and sound. This article discusses these latter topics.
• "Spritz Spritz, Bang Bang"--Hell In A Handbasket. A look at non-lethal weapons:

       Batons concentrate the force of a blow, they don’t multiply force.  If one can only muster the energy of a landing butterfly for a punch, then it doesn’t matter if the butterfly is made of steel.

     The same goes for defensive sprays.

      They are extremely useful in that they will make it more difficult for an attacker to carry out their attacks, but there is no guarantee that it will make them stop.  They cause pain, makes it more difficult to breath, and fogs the vision if spray gets in the eyes.  And that is pretty much it.  If the person struck by defensive spray decides to keep on fighting, there is no reason why they can’t continue to do so.

      I have always said that defensive sprays are best used to help running away.  If an attacker is sprayed with mace or pepper spray before the victim takes off, then the ability for the aggressor to chase after them is very curtailed.  If you can’t run due to advanced age, infirmity, or deteriorated physical condition then it isn’t going to do much more than make the aggressor very, very angry.

Besides which, most people don't know how to correctly use a baton. Much of its employment is to jab, and the targets are vulnerable areas of the body, not the strongest, most protected parts of the body.

• Related: "Why Gun Beats Pepper Spray Every Time"--Bearing Arms. The author relates a story of a smash and grab where the criminals sprayed the store owner with so much pepper spray, responding police had to wear protective suits, but the store owner was still able to get to her firearm and shoot at the criminals.

"MP5 magdump ambush on a guy who shot at Utah County Deputies"--Donut Operator (4 min).

• "Whites in Servitude in Early America and Industrial Britain"--Unz Report. They weren't merely "indentured servants," but outright slaves for life, with their children also being subjected to slavery. From the article:

       Up to one-half of all the arrivals in the American colonies were Whites slaves and they were America’s first slaves. These Whites were slaves for life, long before Blacks ever were. This slavery was even hereditary. White children born to White slaves were enslaved too.

      Whites were auctioned on the block with children sold and separated from their parents and wives sold and separated from their husbands. Free Black property owners strutted the streets of northern and southern American cities while White slaves were worked to death in the sugar mills of Barbados and Jamaica and the plantations of Virginia.

• "Not a Country; Not Even a Team"--American Renaissance. Recent immigrants to the U.S. from Latin America and Asia are not assimilating. An excerpt:

        Many other “Americans” feel the same way. In 1999, the American women’s soccer team played the Chinese team in Los Angeles for the finals of the Women’s World Cup. Los Angeles has long had large Chinese communities from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the mainland that were frosty towards each other, but they set aside their differences to root for the Chinese team. “There are political differences, but because the team is Chinese, that’s all we think about,” explained Louis Wong, who was from Hong Kong.

       Hostile Chinese organizations called a truce and bought seats in the same area so thousands of Chinese-Americans could sit together and make a tremendous din for the Beijing team. The idea of coming together to root for their new homeland appears not to have occurred to them. “I’m a U.S. citizen, but I’m Chinese,” explained businessman Edward Chang.[i]

      Mr. Chang and Mr. Tristan call themselves “American,” but what does that mean? “American” no longer has a racial connotation. It no longer has a linguistic connotation; a declaration by lawyer Aaron Schlossberg that Americans should speak English made him a media target. Outlets such as Time tell us that illegal immigrants calling themselves “Dreamers” are “new Americans,” so you can be an American without even being a citizen.

      The United States may be the “sole superpower” but American identity means nothing more than participation in an economy. Today, appeals to America identity, such as “that’s not who we are” or “those aren’t our values” are usually used to tell us we are not morally allowed to act in our own interests. Reporters and watchdogs look down their noses at even the bloodless civic nationalism represented by American symbols. Millions of “Americans” show no respect for the national flag and don’t support the national team.

• Pyramid power: "The Great Pyramid of Giza Might Focus Electromagnetic Energy in Its Chambers"--Science Alert. From the article:

        "We had to use some assumptions," says Andrey Evlyukhin, senior researcher from ITMO University in Russia.

         "For example, we assumed that there are no unknown cavities inside, and the building material with the properties of an ordinary limestone is evenly distributed in and out of the pyramid."

        Then they made a model of the pyramid and its electromagnetic response. By calculating something called the extinction cross section, the team were able to estimate how the wave energy is scattered or absorbed by the pyramid.

       Using a special type of analysis called a multipole analysis the researchers found that the scattered fields were concentrating in the pyramid's internal chambers as well as under its base.

• "Blowing Smoke"--West Hunt. An article on the inheritability of intelligence. An excerpt:

After a long and difficult pregnancy, Nature Genetics  finally gave birth to a big paper about genetic influences  on educational achievement. Now we know more of the genes that result in high heritability of phenotypes like educational attainment – including something about the metabolic paths involved. These results don’t explain all the heritability we see – in particular the part due to rare deleterious variants – but they  explain some.  Now, from a gene sample, knowing nothing else, we can say something about some kid’s likelihood of completing college. People in the bottom quintile of the polygenic score had a 10% chance of graduating, those in the top quintile had a 55% chance. Obviously if we knew his grades, test scores,  permanent record and genotype, we could make an even better prediction: still, this is interesting.

August 1, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Inverters: How Do They Work?" (7 min.)

• "WHAT IS “COVER” IN YOUR HOME AND WILL IT STOP A RIFLE ROUND? LETS FIND OUT."--Loose Rounds. The author had an old abandoned home, still with some furniture and appliances, and decided to shoot it up with a few different calibers and types of bullets. Some of the results might surprise you. First of all, pretty much nothing but a bookcase (with books) and a clothes dryer stopped all test rounds. This is probably what most of you expected. But what was surprising is that the .223 was much better at penetration than 7.62x39. The latter was not only stopped by what stopped the .223, but also stopped by the refrigerator. Of course, the interior walls were no barrier to the bullets. 

       I would comment on this, however, which is that most of these tests are performed shooting at the wall(s) from a 90 degree angle. A shallow angle would result in the bullets hitting the studs and other framing, which would reduce penetration and/or change the bullet path. I would like to see a test like this because if you have to use your firearm, it may very well be shooting down a hallway with rooms to either side, where a miss will result in the bullet striking the wall at a shallow angle.

• "The Carjacker Beatdown"--Active Response Training. An erstwhile carjacker attempted to heist a car with a women and kids in it. He crashed into a telephone pole and bystanders decided to have their way with him, dragging him from the car and giving him an educational beatdown. Greg Elifritz has some good commentary on certain points, such as why get the guy out of the car if you can get the mother and kids out and take the keys; using a neck crank to make it easier to pull the guy out; and some advice on how to "break" the guy down so he stays down. He also suggests staying on the guy after police arrive so it is easier for the police to put handcuffs on the perpetrator; although I live in a community where the police shoot first and ask questions later, so I don't know how safe that is. (E.g.: I had a classmate in college that was a nurse who tried to assist someone that had fallen from a window at a crowded bar; even as he was rendering aid, the police tackled him, handcuffed him, then jerked him around with the cuffs, so he had long scabs and bruises along both forearms a few days later when I saw him. And, yes, bystanders were attempting to explain that he was just assisting, and he had identified himself as a nurse). 

     However, I thought this was interesting because it shows how so many violent criminals really aren't human:

 Look at the suspect when the cop stands him up at the 2:50 mark.  He has just carjacked a woman and child, crashed their car, and fought both the citizens who detained him and the police officer.  Look at his face.  A disgusting smirk is all we see.  He doesn’t care one bit for the victims he terrorized.  That’s something that every good person needs to understand…a predatory criminal couldn’t care less about you or your children.  He doesn’t care about anything except getting what he wants without getting caught or feeling pain.  If you think that moral or rational appeals will be successful against these folks, you are wrong.  It’s almost as if they are from another universe.  Don’t assume that they will operate by any moral code with which you are familiar.  These psychopaths don’t care about ANYTHING!  If they have to hurt you to get what they want, they won’t hesitate for a moment.

• "Military Terms of the Modern Era"--This is an online dictionary of military terms, in case you are trying to puzzle out what some acronym means, or the difference between a battalion and a division.
• "The Dangers of Backing Up… QUICKLY!"--Handgun Combatives. The author discusses situations where you may well have to turn your back on a threat. From the article:

      The fact of the matter is you can’t run backwards!  By run I mean move quickly, at a speed that will help save your life if bullets are in bound. Yes, it is possible to move to the rear at a controlled speed, but if moving as fast as humanely possible to create distance is the goal, then trying to move quickly backwards will result in a fall and falling in a gunfight can prove fatal.

       Moving to the rear in a controlled fashion can be accomplished two ways. The first is a “step and drag” technique that has the shooter step back with one foot and then drag the trailing foot into place. The second is a “shuffle step” in which the feet are kept in contact with the ground and shifted back and forth…neither will allow for the development of rapid speed…the type of speed needed to get from place to place as fast a humanly possible.

* * *

     Moving rapidly to the rear does not allow for this natural shift of the center of gravity between the feet.  ... Since the feet and toes are not pointed in the direction of said movement, the ass over rides the feet and the combatant falls. 

      During rapid rearward movement, the typical person will have 3 to 4 steps before they run the risk of falling. ...

      ... If moving quickly is more important than moving in a controlled fashion, you may have to turn your back in order to create distance, move to cover or gain a position of advantage to continue the fight.

• "Derp Debunked: Retiring Two Cherished Myths About Guns"--ITS Tactical. The first myth is that you need to keep your firearm squeaky clean:

       ... the zealous, detail strip and white glove-clean treatment that some shooters administer to their guns do nothing more than accelerate wear and breakage. Yes, really.

       Due to enshrining absolute cleanliness as a virtue and the removal of every trace of residue as a holy mandate, some shooters won’t stop attacking their guns after even a day at the range with more and more aggressive brushes, scrapers, chemicals and cleansers until they’re operating theater clean. A few wayward souls even get after their guns with the infamous Dremel or other motorized tools. This is totally unnecessary for nominal function and this constant cleaning and disassembly harms the gun by eroding tolerances, thinning or breaching surface coatings and even wearing away the surface hardening of working parts.

"Doomsday Marauders"--Jerome NKy Preparedness (4 min.)

"As long as my neighbors have food, I have food." A frank discussion about those "preppers" who plan on taking their neighbors' food and supplies.

• Paging Jackson Galaxy: "Oregon woman finds mountain lion napping in her home: 'This is wild'"--Fox News. I've seen a lot of comments about this incident, but thought I would throw in my 2 cents. The basic background is that the woman found a mountain lion asleep in her house. Rather than disturb the mountain lion and attempt to scare or drive it out of her house, she opted to use some cat body language. 

       Taylor made a noise to wake the feline, but then “gazed lovingly into her eyes, and communicated using feline-speak eye blinking to calm her,” she wrote.

       “It was amazing to realize that this worked. I gazed lovingly then blinked hard and then she did it back,” Taylor continued, adding that the cat then went back to sleep. “She clearly felt safe and she showed no inclination to leave."

Later the cat woke up and left to avoid having to hear the woman playing a drum. A lot of people have criticized the woman, but given the situation, it was probably as good as any other solution. Jackson Galaxy hosts (or hosted) a program called "My Cat From Hell" where he helps people deal with problem cats, and as he has explained, the slow blink is a means by which cats communicate that they are not a threat. If you give a slow blink to the cat and the cat responds, it means that they are calm and also recognize or acknowledge that you are not a threat. So, in this case, the woman's slow blinking helped keep the cat calm.

• True-colors: "Koch-Backed CATO Institute: ‘Time for the U.S. to Have Open Borders’"--Breitbart. From the article:

In an op-ed for USA Today, the Cato Institute’s Director of Economic Studies, Jeffrey Miron, says the U.S. “has nothing to fear, and much to gain, from open borders,” saying that Americans should “forget” about putting a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to stop illegal immigration.

• Nothing to fear from open borders: "Frightening moment seven masked illegal immigrants storm a jewelry store in a Texas mall, sparking fears of a mass shooting"--Daily Mail. It reports:

       The men, who range in age from 22 to 43, stormed  Deutsch & Deutsch at La Plaza Mall in McAllen on Saturday at around 1pm where they smashed the store's cabinets to try to grab merchandise.

      Videos of the attempted robbery circulated on social media afterwards.  They showed the men wearing masks on their faces and wielding guns at customers in the store.

• We're from the government and we're here to help: "'This is a horror movie scenario': Homeowner, 73, accidentally killed by police had shot naked home intruder who was trying to drown his 11-year-old grandson in a bathtub"--Daily Mail. From the article:

      Several family and neighbors had called 911, including Black's wife Jeanette, who gave dispatchers a very specific description of her husband and what he was wearing.

      Police arrived and the stepson was in the bathroom with the child and Jeannette was outside on the phone, speaking to 911 dispatch, when they heard gunshots.

     Black was standing in his living room when he was hit by gunfire, Rathod said.

The intruder was naked, so it shouldn't have been too hard for the police to tell who was who.

• Only the police are skilled enough to carry firearms: "'Drop the knife!': Dramatic video shows LAPD officers fatally shooting a man and the woman he was holding hostage at knifepoint"--Daily Mail. According to the article, "Cops fired nearly 20 times and killed both Perez and Tollison." Looking at the video, which shows the perpetrator practically standing clear of the hostage, I would guess that the majority--at least 90%--of civilian concealed carry holders could have killed the perpetrator with one shot and no injury to the woman.
• Draining the swamp: "Federal prosecutors said to be investigating lobbyist Tony Podesta after special counsel referral"--CNBC. Also under investigation is former Rep. Vin Weber, R-Minn., and former Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig. Interestingly, the case was referred to prosecutors in New York, which suggests to me that some stock or securities shenanigans may have been going on.
• "FISA documents reveal FBI collusion"--Boston Herald. From the article:

       [T]he bulk of the information that formed the basis for the FISA warrant applications was the “dossier” of allegations about Donald Trump’s activities in Russia. This dossier was provided to the FBI by British spy Christopher Steele. Steele was hired during the 2016 presidential campaign by opposition research firm Fusion GPS, who was paid by Hillary Clinton’s law firm Perkins Coie, who was paid by the Clinton campaign and the DNC. The allegations were scandalous and completely unverified, in violation of federal statutes and FISA court rules.

       In other words, the FBI used oppo research paid for by the Democrats as justification for government spying on a political opponent and other Americans.

• "MH370 Was ‘Manipulated’ Off Course to Its End, Report Says"--Bloomberg. The article relates:

It’s difficult to attribute the change in course to any system failure, according to the report released Monday. “It is more likely that such maneuvers are due to the systems being manipulated,” the report said.

In other words, the pilot did it.

• "South Africa to change constitution to legalize taking away white farmers' land"--RT. From the article:

       South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said the ruling African National Congress must initiate a parliamentary process to enshrine in the constitution a proposed amendment, paving the way for land grabs without compensation.

      Ramaphosa, who vowed to return the lands owned by the white farmers since the 1600s to the country's black population after he assumed office in February this year, said on Tuesday that the ANC would introduce a constitutional amendment in parliament.

There is a certain irony here because the majority blacks in South Africa are not descended from the original inhabitants. Rather, it was the minority Saan that occupied the land at the time of colonization. The black majority are Buntu that entered the land from the north at the same time European settlers were pushing from the South. And a great deal of the blacks are actually descended from workers brought into South Africa after the end of the colonial period. 

• Drawing blanks: So far, every experiment devised to detect dark matter has come up empty (although scientists are discovering that there is a lot more normal matter out there than previously believed). The same seems to be happening with dark energy as this article, entitled "No sign of Symmetrons" explains. Even the models which dark energy is intended to explain are under question, as recent measurements have shown a difference in galactic expansion measured by the Hubble constant (based on the red shift of stars moving away from us) and measured by looking at the cosmic background radiation. Dark matter is pretty much debunked and dark energy looks to be on the way to the dustbin of history as well. These theories will hang on until their strongest proponents retire or die, but we should start to see a shift in the coming few years.