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Please see my new featured article Christian Reconstruction and Pete Hegseth’s Confirmation as SecDef.

Odd one, this is. But I would bet that with a good cleaning and a bit of oil, all four would have functioned flawlessly.

For the record, that white stuff he was asking about is Aluminum corrosion in salt water. Corrosion is a slightly different mechanism that rust, but it can still damage components.

But as I made my way through his video, it occurred to me that looking for what made the guns fail, he looked everywhere but where he needed: the buffer tube.

Standing tall and proud, as they should.

A group of coal miners from West Virginia have finished building a road from Big Chimney in under a week.

A road that North Carolina Government Officials said would take several months to a year for them to do. #appalachianstrong pic.twitter.com/Y5E9BWbcAM

— Appalachian Liberty (@Liberty_Xtreme) October 26, 2024

Here is what Chimney Rock looked liked during the flooding.

Here is an arial view of the road they built.

Here is the report.

Blue-collar workers prevailed over bureaucracy in Hurricane Helene-ravaged North Carolina by rebuilding a highway at breakneck speed on their own terms – allowing residents to finally return home.

Coal miners from West Virginia – whom locals have lovingly dubbed the “West Virginia Boys” – moved a mountain in just three days to reopen a 2.7-mile stretch of Highway 64 between Bat Cave and Chimney Rock washed away by Helene.

Chimney Rock residents who fled the hurricane one month ago will now be able to return home for the first time within a few days, months earlier than they expected.

“The river swallowed the road, so I haven’t been home since the hurricane,” Robin Phillips, 49, told The Post.

“The West Virginia boys have moved the mountains. All of the roads were just gone, until now. It’s nothing short of miraculous.

“I haven’t been to my house since the flood but I know very soon I’ll be able to. Without their help, who knows, it would be months before I could access our house.”

Phillips and her husband also run a campground in Chimney Rock, she said. They have not been able to assess the state of their business since the hurricane came through.

“For a small community like ours without many residents, that could easily get overlooked, it’s unreal what they’re doing,” she said of the miners’ effort.

The Post previously spoke to “sole survivors” from Chimney Rock, who expected to spend a year on the open road until road access to their home was restored.

On Friday, The Post watched while the miners balanced a bulldozer and two excavators on the banks of the newly-widened Broad River to shift the final 20-ton granite boulder into place to restore access between the two towns.

The miners, who were all volunteering their time, were too sheepish about building a highway without legal permission to speak on the record.

Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), North Carolina Department of Transportation and the local Sheriff’s office all visited the site but turned a blind eye to the unsanctioned build.

Logan Campbell, 37, a volunteer from Mississippi, said the miners embodied the American spirit.

“To see this many wonderful men, women, all races, different political views, none of that matters at all in these situations,” he told The Post.

“Weak people don’t show up for s–t like this, and if they do they don’t last long.

“It’s such a heartwarming thing to see amidst all the heartbreak.

“It gives you so much hope for the American we all want to believe in and the America we want our children to experience.”

Campbell and his friend Dan Lewis, 41, have been sleeping in tents for the past 17 days volunteering for the residents in the hardest hit towns.

“Different road crews came in and said ‘it’s not doable, the people who live between Bat Cave and Chimney Rock will be trapped in all winter,” said Lewis, who traveled to North Carolina from Oklahoma.

“The DOT (North Carolina Department of Transportation) said ‘yeah, we’ll send some engineers down here and assess the situation.’

“Then the West Virginia boys came in and said, ‘We’ll have this road punched in in about three days.’ No s–t,” he recalled.

“The Army Corps of Engineers took a look and said they’d send some surveyors and engineers, the same thing the DOT said pretty much. I told them you might as well not waste your time because the West Virginia guys will have this road built before you finish your paperwork,” Lewis continued.

“It’s a miracle. It’s unfathomable what has happened in the past few days.

Many in the area still feel abandoned by FEMA and other emergency responders.

Bat Cave resident Curtis McCart – who appeared on The Post’s cover in the immediate wake of Helene – said he still has not received any FEMA aid, but that the agency has set up in the fire department to help residents work on their claims.

“This area got left alone. I rode my horse around and talked to people who haven’t seen any officials,” Lewis told The Post.

Hey, my state of North Carolina indemnifies engineers for volunteer services performed during emergencies. If they need a PE to come look at it and put a seal on it, I’m available.

Please visit my new featured article, The Paradox and Absurdities of Carbon-Fretting and Rewilding.

Some helpful tips for young families. YMMV. Certainly, offhand shooting is critical. Having a plan, first aid, and controlling your children in a gunfight are very lightly considered. If you carry with children in public, train for it. Story at the link.

Unlikely buddies.

He says, “What is that?”

Hey, that’s good fishing Eagle!

Dang that bear is big!

We posted about this two months ago when the President of Ecuador authorized citizens to carry and use arms for defense against crime. I argued that the media will need to report these uses to be an effective deterrent to further crime there. And here in America, if there were robust reporting on all defensive gun uses, including when the gun is not fired, the amount of armed robbery and other violent crimes would be drastically lowered.

Slow Facts argues that mass shootings would also be reduced.

Real life isn’t like the movies. Bad guys don’t walk around with a soundtrack thumping with every step. Movie makers want to thrill us, but saving lives in real life is a lot more ordinary than that. Because it doesn’t sell tickets or sell soap, the news media isn’t interested in how our neighbors stopped mass-murderers about once a month for the last eight years. Ordinary people like us would do it even more often if politicians got out of our way.

Recognizing a new problem- Times have changed. Today we live in a media driven culture. Mass-murderers feel like failures and they want to take revenge on society. These narcissists know that the mainstream media will give them a multi-million dollar publicity campaign if they kill enough innocent people. The murderers revel in the thought of being famous even if they are not alive to enjoy that infamy. That feeling of anticipation is one reason the mass-murderers spend years in the planning stage. Those feelings of resentment and anticipation explain why these murderers write such lengthy manifestos and diaries.

Recognizing new solutions- Mass-murderers already feel like a failure. They don’t want to experience more failure when they come to kill. That explains why they seldom attack a group of armed policemen or attack an NRA convention where about half the adults are armed. The media won’t give mass-murderers the recognition they want when they are stopped and killed so quickly.

At first, we weren’t sure if armed citizens were a workable solution. Because the news media doesn’t cover it, it was hard to find cases where the attempted mass-murderers were stopped by ordinary citizens who happened to be nearby. Oddly enough, the mass-murderers did our research for us.

More at the link.

I’ve given initial training to a few folks, women and children mostly. I’m not a professional trainer, but the study of situational awareness is important. Sadly, it seems that police support sites are the only good sources of writing about firearms mindset

I’ve not read the book Spotting Danger Before It Spots You, by Gary Quesenberry from which the linked article makes mention. Also offered are opinions from the President of the United States Conceal Carry Association, Tim Schmidt.

When researchers videotaped people walking through a busy intersection in New York City, they later showed the tape to inmates who were incarcerated for violent crimes. They asked the inmates to rate the pedestrians on a scale of one to 10. One is an easy target, and 10 is a hard target.

The inmates rated the following body language characteristics as being a soft target:

• Short, shuffling strides
• Not swinging their arms in proportion with their stride
• Exaggerated side-to-side movement when walking
• Head facing at a downward angle

Conversely, the inmates rated the following body language characteristics as being a hard target:

•  Medium to long stride
• Arms swinging in proportion to their stride
• Body movement in vertical alignment; appeared as a strong and determined walking pattern
• Head level and eyes visible when walking

[…]

“Don’t go anywhere with your gun you wouldn’t go without it,” says [Tim] Schmidt.

This is a great point. It’s folly to assume you’re better off someplace you shouldn’t be just because you have a gun. If you shouldn’t be there or don’t belong there, don’t go. Similarly, becoming accustomed to always carrying is essential; never be without your gun, regardless of where you go. The first rule of a gunfight is to have a gun. Nor should carrying a firearm cause a more relaxed posture in any circumstance, be it home, work, or out.

It’s easy to make the error that peace of mind comes from having a gun. Peace of mind comes foremost from the Lord, having trained and prepared to defend yourself and your family. Peace of mind comes from being sure of yourself. That’s the basis of what the survey with the prisoners above shows, confidence in yourself, your surroundings, knowledge of where you’re going, and having purposeful intent in your demeanor.

I used to travel for word. Before I stopped flying completely, I very often got pulled from the gate or boarding line for “extra screening.” Now, I’m not particularly unusual. In fact, you could say my most unusual physical feature is my very usual size, build, and appearance. But, I’d get pulled because I was the only one not drooling into a cell phone; I was paying attention, examining the passengers, security measures, and conducting general safety observations. Well, it wasn’t hard for me to spot security; they were the only ones that were also paying attention. It’s better in that situation not to pretend you aren’t checking things. Trying not to be observed while being aware is sometimes a bad choice, as with the street crossers that had their heads up and eyes open. The point is you may be the only one paying attention, but it can save your life and the lives of others.

There are a few interesting points in the article.

I know some folks that carry a .380 pocket pistol as their primary weapon. I never thought much of this idea, although in testing this method some years ago, it is simple and comfortable but it was easy to see that it would not be the best option for me. If you are properly prepared and practice how to be safe with it, you can easily carry it concealed without drawing attention, which is the biggest plus. The main concern is the weapon falling out of your pocket, depending on the type of pants you wear. I hate those little in-pocket holsters. Drawing rapidly from those is awkward and slow.

I will say this without equivocation, I do not recommend off-body carry in a bag or purse, or fanny pack. Don’t do this! Learn to carry on your person.

Here are some other thoughts on IWB and Pocket carry.

Carrying a gun can be complicated. Not always, and not even most of the time, but sometimes life gets in the way. Sometimes that means changing how you dress, which can often cause issues when it comes to concealed carry. Deep concealment exists because certain clothes aren’t carry-friendly. When you find yourself in a less-than-stellar means of dress, you aren’t left with many options, and the two most consider are pocket carry or a tuckable IWB rig.

Today we are going to compare and contrast the two methods of concealed carry and try to dig into the advantages and disadvantages of both. This isn’t a contest where we declare option A is better than option B. Instead, we want to deliver the truth about both carry styles so you can make a more informed decision.

Upon a promotion at the day job, I found myself in a new style of dress, and that style wasn’t carry-friendly. This led me down the road to figuring out what best worked for me.

Deep Concealment Carry Methods

There are more than two ways to dive into deep concealment. We have options like ankle carry, the Phlster Enigma, belly bands, and more. In the future, we plan to explore more options, but to maintain focus, we are going to keep this conversation at pocket carry and tuckable IWB rigs.

Pocket Carry

Pocket carry has been around for about as long as guns have been. Back in the day, guns like the original Philadelphia Derringer were designed for the coat pocket. In the early 1900s, the idea of pocket carry was common enough that it made its way into the names of weapons. The Colt 1903 Pocket Hammerless, for example, emphasized pocket carry.

More at the link.

There are consequences to both winning and losing a gunfight and consequences still for never taking up the duty to defend your family. Weighing in the balance that winning is the preferred option, how can we prepare? Much of this article, past the introduction, is interesting, and it has many links to excellent primary source material for the conscientious Concealed Carrier. The links and book mentions are one main reason to post it here.

Please do your own research to become conscientious about carrying a weapon; it’s no small thing. Having a weapon lends power, making a man no longer a victim; with it comes great responsibility.

For those who’ve been carrying for a while, we can become complacent. Perhaps mindset refresher training is even more critical than maintaining shooting ability, or at least it’s due an equal time and importance. Most firearms negligent discharges have their root not in any action, but long before that, in a complacent or casual mindset, leading to carelessness.

Mindset is at the core of self defense. From what I recall from the martial arts I studied in my youth, the concept of “mind, body, and spirit” was frequently mentioned and I think that mind being the first element identified by the concept was intentional. Some prominent firearms training organizations include this concept in their slogans and marketing. For example, the first thing one sees on the homepage for Tactical Response is a slideshow with mindset as the first item, that’s followed by tactics, skill and gear. Again, the order is intentional. Another example is Active Self Protection, who uses “Attitude, Skills, Plan” as a slogan in their logo and throughout their content. I suspect attitude in this slogan is synonymous to mindset. Other synonyms might include terms like “mental preparedness” or “emotional fortitude”. Regardless of the term used for mindset, it seems like every philosophy that surrounds every martial art fundamentally identifies mindset as the foundation that is required and necessary in order to win a fight universally. Even various depictions of the Combat Triad introduced by the late Jeff Cooper, which was used to explain the philosophy of violence places mindset as either the foundation of a pyramid or the base side of an equilateral triangle.

For us Christians, the spirit must be the first consideration and the body last. If you have to shoot somebody, you’ll learn the hard way why you should have set your heart right before the God of creation because your mind, sooner or later, for one reason or another, will surely fail to keep you grounded in your prior reality; that’s a promise.

You must have something larger than yourself; that must be God through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Nobody really knows their own spirit until they meet God because He alone is holy, and we, at our core, are full of sin and corruption. May you meet Him before you die; God have mercy on them.

Consider carefully what will become of your mind if you kill a man, even if justified before God and the laws of men; this is why I prefer the translation of “Thou shalt not kill.” It’s easy to tell a man who has never had to take a life if he prefers the word murder instead of kill. If you kill for any reason, you will soon be met with the knowledge of the depths of the curse of sin upon man and earth. Blood in taking a life made in the image of our God upon your hands, for any reason, is no small thing, and you will never fully recover your innocence nor be the same again. Rarely do some men take to war. But it’s also easy to tell somebody who has never been shot at because they ignorantly promote war.

In my opinion, which I’m still refining, mindset is part confidence and part commitment. Both of those components are developed over time as one works on becoming better prepared to deal with a violent encounter including its prevention (avoiding it), intervention (fighting to break contact), and postvention (dealing with the aftermath). Neither confidence nor commitment are things that can be taught. They are things that are built through education, developing abilities, and introspection. Let’s break these components down a little bit more individually.

Confidence comes from having well placed and earned trust in our abilities and tools. Abilities, in my opinion once again, aren’t limited to marksmanship and tactics. It also includes our abilities to make good decisions. Meaning we know in our heart of hearts that we are unlikely to make a serious mistake that could result in a negative outcome that Claude Werner’s work has warned us about. Confidence minimizes doubt which in turn minimizes hesitation.

Confidence also comes from being adequately prepared to solve the self defense problem that is in front of us. This means being competently skilled and familiar enough with our tools while knowing enough about violent encounters so that there is little to no novelty about what is happening. Based on my limited understanding of the research and work from Dr. Paul Whitesell, Jeff Cooper, John Hearne, and Dr. William Aprill, novelty is something that our brain doesn’t deal well with and can trigger the flight, fight, or freeze response that occurs when the limbic system, or “animal brain”, takes over preventing the use of our cognitive abilities during the encounter which can lead to serious mistakes and negative outcomes.

Commitment comes from knowing and understanding what is at stake coupled with having a deliberate game plan. The stakes at a minimum are serious injury or death for yourself and loved ones present. Those are pretty high stakes, but like I said, those are the bare minimum.

The real danger in mindset, the article goes on to explain, is in finding yourself not knowing what to do. You can read the rest at the link. It’s nice to find worthwhile firearms knowledge that doesn’t gratuitously and needless cuss and denigrate. America needs more family-friendly gun knowledge.