Monday Wrap Up is the last week in review. What happened around the web that you may have missed.
In the News:
Guns on Military Bases
Trump Pushes to Allow Troops to Carry Personal Weapons on Bases reports Military.com. Well… where is it? We are waiting? This was something that was done by executive order years ago and could be changed with executive orders today.
Trump is smart sometimes and not so others. I’m sure he is getting his top generals’ opinions on this and I’m sure they are telling him NO WAY! The days of Generals having to be warriors is gone. It’s my opinion that most Generals today are afraid of their own troops and are glad to have them unarmed anytime they can. Do to the General’s own inadequacy at his/her job they point out that the troops don’t have the training or decision making capabilities to carry on US bases, but somehow carry overseas in combat zones.
If you go down the rabbit hole of logic, our troops should be able to be armed all the time. But when it comes to gun control who wants to use logic? It gets in the way.
The Media Attacks Guns Anyway they Can
Bloomberg published a hack piece, Wells Fargo Is the Go-To Bank for Gunmakers and the NRA (I put a link here for you so I could be more of journalist then most paid writers out there, even-though it’s painful for me to give any link juice to them), about the banks that do business with gun companies. They want to shame banks into getting rid of the funding for gun companies.
Something like this was tried years ago under the Obama Admin by the DOJ called Operation Choke Point to get banks to not do business with certain “high-risk businesses” including firearms companies. But once money is involved a different form of morality kicks in. Banks are large companies. The larger the company the more their morality is like a politicians (only more money is involved). Not all are bad, but, money is the motivating factor and their morality is whatever cannot be proven illegal.
This doesn’t seem to be gaining much traction and I hope it dies a quick painful death.
The .380 Auto
Is it good enough for serious self defense work? I try to push students towards the 9mm as the best caliber available right now for personal defense, but can the .380 work? Yes and no. The .380 is an underpowered 9mm. With modern ammo the ammo does fine on a bare target. The problem lies with penetration. The .380 just doesn’t have enough energy to go through an intermediate barrier then be able to do anything reliably in a person. But, if that is the only thing someone will carry, it’s better then a sharp stick. In fact my wife just got her carry license and I’m pushing here (because she won’t carry a bigger gun) to the Glock 42 in .380. It’s a start.
Go read long term trainer John Farnam’s article The Lowly 380 Auto. John is one of the guys that has been testing and perfecting the techniques of today. He didn’t just learn from Jeff Cooper and pass the info on, he made and learned a lot of tactics the hard way.
Utah School Bombing
This happened in 2005 but looks like a botched suicide bombing. If we have less guns there will be more bombs. I’d rather face a gun then a bomb. Guns are slower, have a smaller blast radius and can generally only kill one at a time. Bombs suck!
The incident was recently declassified and is now public record. You have to wonder why a domestic bombing was hidden from the public in 2005? Anyways, it was a simple mass school killing that didn’t happen. A disgruntled student tried to take a home made bomb into a school event inside his back pack. He was denied entry because of his bag and went about a 100 yards away and blew up. Don’t know if it was an accident or on purpose, but either way, the world is scary out there.
Read Greg Ellifritz take on this. Greg is a cop and one of the smartest people in the world right now when it comes to bombings and mass killings. Go read his article, The Utah School Bombing.
The Systemic Failure of Law Enforcement
“Only half of Rapid Mass Murder© incidents are ever stopped by anyone, meaning in that half, the murdering stops only when the murderer says it stops, as in this Florida example. In the half that is stopped by someone, it is on-site citizens that are the majority factor by a two-thirds majority. The remaining minority third is stopped by OFF-SITE police” – Ron Borsch noted police trainer and active killer researcher said in an article on ActiveResponseTraining.net
This story talks about how law enforcement can’t be there and hasn’t been there for us and our kids during active shooter events. If you do the math from above cops have stop 3 of 20 mass shootings or 16% of them. 33% are stopped by citizens and most are stopped when the killer decides he is done.
You are on your own! Take care of yourself and others when you can.
Incase You Missed It:
Podcast 222 Competition Will Get You Killed – I hear this all the time and it’s from people that are afraid to shoot competitions. Funny how they want to be great warriors but are afraid of looking bad or showing their true skills at a competition.
Don’t Hold People At Gun Point – It could get you killed and it’s not your job. Here’s what to do instead and remember what your responsibility is in self defense.
Podcast 223 Realities of Firearms Training – Not everyone is the same, and not everyone should be trained the same way. Here’s a look at the different types of people and how to train them (I type people by the amount of effort they want to put into their self defense, nothing else for all you politically correct people that are already thinking something bad).
5 Minute Friday: Escape! – Back to basics of self defense. Avoid the problem if you can, then escape the problem, then de-escalate, then non-lethal, then lethal.
Stay Safe,
Ben