From a reader, Army.mil.

Chaplain Shabazz: The issues involving religious accommodation during the month of Ramadan typically occur in three areas: training exercises in the field; physical training; and proper hydration. Commanders can help Muslims Soldiers fulfill their religious requirements during Ramadan by accommodating them in a couple of ways.

First, when possible, commanders can allow Muslim Soldiers to participate in light duty when on an exercise or in the field, as opposed to strenuous duty.

Second, they can grant liberal leave during part or all of the 30-day fasting period, and grant practicing Muslim Soldiers three days of leave for Eid-Al-Fitr, the celebration that ends the 30-day fast of Ramadan.

Third, commanders can exempt Muslim Soldiers from physical training or grant them limited time outdoors during the fasting period. It’s important to keep in mind that Soldiers will spend approximately 16 hours with no food or water during daylight hours, so ensuring proper hydration is a serious concern.

Finally, commanders can allow observing Muslim Soldiers time to observe the five daily prayers at a Mosque or at a designated prayer location during this time.

HuffPo.

The Pentagon took steps on Wednesday to give individual troops greater latitude to wear turbans, head scarfs, yarmulkes and other religious clothing with their uniforms, but advocacy groups said the new policy fell short of what they were seeking.

Question: If you tried really hard to come up with ideas that would break unit cohesion, tear asunder the readiness and morale of the U.S. military, and create a circus freak show atmosphere, what would you do any differently than what they’re doing (and have been doing with gender bending)?

PJM.

Right after Beto introduced Biden at the rally on Monday, the former VP effectively endorsed O’Rourke’s gun confiscation plan in all of its divisive glory.

“I want to make something clear. I’m going to guarantee this is not the last you’ve seen of this guy. You’re going to take care of the gun problem with me, you’re going to be the one who leads this effort,” the establishment Democrat declared.

To me, a “gun problem” is a broken firing pin or charging handle.

American Rifleman has the scoop, but Ammoland does a little better job by giving stats.

Actually, neither had the scoop on me.  I had discussed this very gun with Steve Mayer at RRA back in December of 2019.

My only complaint about Rock River Arms guns is that the ones that I’ve had seem to have weighty front ends.  I had always thought they needed to be a little more on the cutting edge for reduced-weight hand guards.

With the unloaded weight of this gun coming in at 6.8 pounds, it seems like they’ve taken up the challenge.

Steve also points out that if you don’t want to buy the whole gun, they sell the upper separately.

CNN.

Last year, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives banned bump stock devices — attachments that essentially allow shooters to fire semiautomatic rifles continuously with one pull of the trigger.

A group of bump stock owners and Second Amendment groups sought to challenge how the administration went about banning the devices.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was appointed to the court by Trump, wrote a statement saying he agrees the current case should not be heard and that the court was correct not to intervene, but he was concerned with how the lower court handled the issue.

“Justice Gorsuch’s separate opinion isn’t about the merits of the bump stocks rule, but rather whether the lower court applied the correct standard of review in considering those merits. The court’s denial here suggests that the justices are willing to let lower court litigation over the controversial Trump administration rule run its course before deciding if — and how — to intervene,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law.

Here is what Gorsuch wrote.

The law hasn’t changed, only an agency’s interpretation of it. And these days it sometimes seems agencies change their statutory interpretations almost as often as elections change administrations. How, in all this, can ordinary citizens be expected to keep up—required not only to conform their conduct to the fairest reading of the law they might expect from a neutral judge, but forced to guess whether the statute will be declared ambiguous; to guess again whether the agency’s initial interpretation of the law will be declared “reasonable”; and to guess again whether a later and opposing agency interpretation will also be held “reasonable”? And why should courts, charged with the independent and neutral interpretation of the laws Congress has enacted, defer to such bureaucratic pirouetting?

Despite these concerns, I agree with my colleagues that the interlocutory petition before us does not merit review. The errors apparent in this preliminary ruling might yet be corrected before final judgment. Further, other courts of appeals are actively considering challenges to the same regulation. Before deciding whether to weigh in, we would benefit from hearing their considered judgments—provided, of course, that they are not afflicted with the same problems. But waiting should not be mistaken for lack of concern.

His was the dissenting opinion, the only “justice” who expressed any problems with it all.  And if the Supreme Court had heard the case and assigned it to Gorsuch to write the opinion, he could have spent less time declaring the whole thing unconstitutional.

Thus, the Supreme Court has no balls.

Israel National News.

This year’s Munich Security Conference may go down in history as the COVID-19 viral super-spreader “event of the century,” if not in all of recorded history.  That’s because the Munich 2020 event took place from February Friday 14-Sunday 16, and Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif attended.

Unknown to apparently all the high security-minded attendees, FM Zarif was likely carrying much more than the dark secret that the COVID-19 virus had already begun rampaging through the highest echelons of the Iranian government and society.  FM Zarif , or one of his minions, was likely carrying the actual COVID-19, and infected who knows how many of the world’s highest and most influential politicians at the Munich event.

In fact, US Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut, not only met FM Zarif, but met him in Zarif’s hotel suite where there was likely a rat’s nest of COVID-19.  Unless drastic steps are taken, Sen. Murphy may become the Typhoid Mary of COVID-19, and infect the entire US Senate and House of Representatives.

If that happened and stopped law-making, it would be the biggest boon to freedom and liberty in the past two centuries.

News from Virginia.

Annette Elliott, owner and president of Showmasters, a Blacksburg-based promotion company that runs about half of all gun shows across the state every year, said that since January, ticket sales are up 30%.

Walker called the current General Assembly session a “wake up call.”

“Wouldn’t otherwise vote in a local election.”  That’s part of the reason you are where you are at this moment.  Local and state politics is where it’s at, and if you don’t participate, you’ll regret it.  You simply must get past this thing of not otherwise participating in a local election.

If you don’t vote against the controllers, you’re voting for them.  Make your mind up.

CNN.

“You can increase your risk of getting it by wearing a mask if you are not a health care provider,” Adams said during an interview on Fox & Friends on Monday morning.

From Twitter, “Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!

They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!
http://bit.ly/37Ay6Cm“

Do these people actually read what they have written before posting it?  Don’t buy masks because they are ineffective, and besides, if you buy those ineffective masks, our health care professionals won’t be able to buy them.

Good Lord.

I’m not a medical professional (although I will cite one in particular), but one of my best buddies texted me to ask what I thought, so here it is.

Here’s what we know at the moment about Covid-19 (I won’t supply the copious URLs since you can find them yourself or have already studied them).  Covid-19 is probably a weaponized virus.  There is still speculation that the practice of keeping animals in close proximity that would not otherwise be that way has caused animal to animal to human transmission of mutated viruses, but in my opinion this is a least probable origin.

China sat on the information for too long to allow for containment and isolation of it, so the entire world is now dealing with it.  It shows indications of behaving like HIV, inasmuch as the method of attachment to a cell involves a “hook,” and thus it is extremely hard to get rid of.  Animals appear to be able to test “weak positive” for the virus, even if they are asymptomatic.

There is a risk of recurrence of the virus, so this has led to speculation that the virus isn’t really killed with treatment, lies dormant, and can reappear later (maybe not much later).  Then again, it’s entirely possible these patients were released and declared well without really being well.

Two dozen “first responders” have been quarantined in Washington State.  The problem with this was explained to me by my daughter, a health care provider (in surgery and emergency medicine).  Health care providers see patients with HIV, TB and Hepatitis (and various other blood borne and airborne illnesses) all the time.  One cannot isolate and contain without knowing that the patient has a disease.  Diagnosis must precede isolation.  Otherwise, it’s just the common cold.  Covid-19 can be transmitted asymptomatically.

This particular virus has a transmission vector that makes it very contagious.  It’s difficult to diagnose and contain prior to transmission of the virus to others.  Moreover, my daughter is concerned about the level of understanding and training associated with this virus, as well as hospital procedures and equipment to deal with an epidemic.  The CDC can say what they want – the hospitals in America are unqualified to deal with this, and there may be no way to deal with it without assuming that every patient who comes into the ER has this virus (an expensive, time- and labor-intensive process for which America doesn’t have the resources or personnel).

So there is much bad news.  There is some good news too.  While there won’t be a vaccine for this for a long time, it appears that anti-viral drugs (such as are used for HIV) are effective against this virus.  Of course, that’s expensive.  It would stretch the logistics chain to the breaking point, especially since all of our drugs are made in China.  This is one effect of a global economy.

Here is a real time board (Johns Hopkins) of all Covid-19 cases, along with deaths.  If you examine the plot at the lower right, it seems to be indicating (for cases in China), 1 – exp(-lambda * t) approach to an upper asymptote (saturation and approach to a maxima).  I would like to see better correspondence before saying this, and I certainly don’t go on record with this analysis saying this.  I’m paid for my analysis, and I’m getting nothing for this post.

Seeing approach to an upper asymptote would be a good thing, but it requires intensive, aggressive isolation and containment, including stay-at-home workers, travel restrictions, and absolute border controls.

As to how to prepare for this, it all depends on your perspective.  If you believe this doesn’t even approach the deadliness or risk of the common cold or flu, there would be no preparation necessary except to wash your hands and cover your mouth when coughing.  If you believe this is TEOTWAWKI, you won’t be able to do enough preparations.

Not that I’m some sort of expert, but I said I was posting this for a good friend.  I don’t recommend anything beyond your usual preparations.  Do you have guns and ammunition?  You should anyway.  Do you have freeze dried and canned foods, oatmeal and grits, and other things that are non-perishable?  You should anyway.  Do you have means to filter and purify water?  You should anyway.  Do you have batteries and multiple means of fire starter?  You should anyway.

So if you’re just now beginning to think about being prepared, ask yourself why that’s the case.

I do have one very specific recommendation.  Our buddy Matt Bracken stated that he had purchased “rubber gloves.”  This is a good idea, but we need to be more specific than that.  There is a big difference between Nitrile gloves, Butyl rubber gloves, Polyvinyl chloride gloves, and Latex gloves.

Nitrile gloves protect the skin well against nonpolar solvents.  They offer good cut and abrasion resistance, and are often used in medical applications due to puncture resistance.  They are ineffective against some polar solvents.  Butyl rubber gloves are ineffective against nonpolar solvents but protect well against polar solvents.  Polyvinyl Chloride gloves protect against water solutions, acids, some polar solvents and caustics, but not well against nonpolar solvents.  Latex – natural rubber – is ineffective against nonpolar solvents, but offers good cut and abrasion resistance against water solutions and polar solvents.

This is all very complicated.  If you’re not sure which you need, or what the risk is (water solution, acid, caustic, polar or nonpolar solvents), then look it up. If you can’t, double up on gloves to ensure protection against unknown agents.  Nitrile gloves offer good puncture resistance.  They are cheap, they can be found at your local hardware store, and they can be used in concert with other gloves to protect against most agents.  Get some.

Also get breathing air protection.  Be able to filter the air you breath.  Very fine filtration media (HEPA filters would only be available for full face respirators SCBAs and are expensive), combined with charcoal filters is your best bet.  By the way, activated charcoal filter fines are made in Sri Lanka by charcoaling green coconut shells.  Consider logistics and location.

The Washington Post editorial page.

It would be far more alarming if a local sheriff actually makes good on the threat — by refusing, for instance, to seize a weapon from a self-destructive son or daughter whose parents have convinced a judge that suicide may be imminent if law enforcement does not intervene. In that case, it would be not only irresponsible but also illegal, and quite likely would expose sheriffs personally, as well as the localities they represent, to liability in the event of an act of violence.

[ … ]

Gun-rights activists are free to denounce such laws; they are free to mount legal challenges to their constitutionality. But unless and until the laws are struck down by a court, no one is free to violate them.

Sheriffs and other law enforcement officers are sworn to uphold and enforce duly enacted laws. For a sheriff to refuse to enforce a protective order handed down by a court would be “an unspeakable betrayal” of his duties, Mark R. Herring, Virginia’s attorney general, told us.

Well now, if this is all so easy and clear, why are they so worried about it?

Perhaps because they know that it isn’t so easy and clear, and they can’t help but be controllers to the final breath.  “Can a leopard change its spots?”

The title of the opinion piece is “Virginia’s Second Amendment ‘Sanctuaries’ Can’t Ignore New Gun Control Laws.”  Well sure they can.  The question is what happens then?  This is what worries the WaPo, and it should.

The context for this is what we’ve discussed many times before.  Unlike the editors at The Washington Post, we know that rights come from the Almighty.  The constitution is a covenant between men, and  rights are only recognized by them, not created.  Thus, black robes who deny those rights are the same as legislators who deny them, i.e, it’s all tyranny, and it doesn’t make one iota of difference who enacts that tyranny.

Action to resist that tyranny is local in this case, and we’ve noted that there is a war brewing between state-level pols and local pols and Sheriffs.  We might remark that county Sheriffs should be locally funded anyway, and that sending tax monies to Richmond is the wrong way to do that.  In any case, let’s say that the legislature declares that the salaries for constitutional sheriffs is now zero ($0) per year.

What then?  Counties will have to fund county law enforcement if they want it at all.  The next step might involve armed agents of the state entering counties to apprehend and arrest county sheriffs and his deputies.  What then?

The next step might involve boys in Ghillie suits sitting in the hills and hollows of Virginia shooting tires out of vehicles, with boys in masks, black tactical gear and body armor surrounding those vehicles with the state agents inside.

The next step might involve blindfolding those agents, driving them to the county line, confiscating their phones, money, vehicles, firearms and comms gear, dropping them off, and letting them walk home after telling them that “We will allow you to get out of this unscathed this one time, and this one time only.”

Do you see how this game is played?  This is called 4GW, and it gets uglier from this point onward.  And lest you think this is some sort of exaggerated, extremist talk, remember that George Washington was an illegal, extremist militia founder.  This is all part of American history and this was all done about 200 years ago.

4GW is like tic-tac-toe.  The only winning move is not to play the game.  That’s the best bet for the controllers.  Pass the silly laws, ignore it when the laws are ignored, and try to get out of this with just a modicum of dignity left.  Or better yet, don’t pass the silly laws at all.

As always, this commentary is for the meant only for educational and instructional purposes only, all characters are fictional, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

This picture comes to us via reddit/firearms.

It is said that “Marine Sgt. Rudy Soto Jr. was atop the chancery roof, armed only with a 12-gauge shotgun and a .38-caliber revolver. The U.S. ambassador at the time did not believe the Marine Security Guard needed M-16 rifles. His shotgun jammed, and the small-caliber handgun was next to useless at that range.”

That isn’t necessarily related to this picture, although this picture appears to be of a Marine holding a revolver during the Tet offensive near the U.S. embassy.

As to the issue of a “small-caliber handgun” being next to useless at that range, whatever.  A 9mm pistol would have been equally useless.  That’s not what interests me.

Readers know that I’ve had a fascination with just how far (back and forward) in history revolver usage goes in war.