I am going to warn my readers that blog posts may be short and sporadic for the next couple of weeks. I am studying for a new board certification. I am looking to add a board certification in a nursing specialty. Boards are a bitch. (The title is a play on words)
Guns
Caliber Wars II, the 9mm Strikes Back
Peter gets into the caliber wars. I was going to comment, but the comment got pretty long, so I decided to post. I happen to be an ED nurse and a paramedic and have seen more than a couple of gunshot wounds. This is my take: The more energy you dump into the target, the more effective each individual shot will be. At ranges of 10 to 50 feet, nothing is nastier than a shotgun. A load of large shot or a slug will flat out stop an attacker nearly every time.
Likewise, a rifle is king at ranges of 50 feet on out. Carbines are a great compromise. So is a skirmish rifle like the one I built a couple of years ago– especially since a .308 will punch through most body armor.
I once had a firearm instructor tell me:
If you know you will be in a gunfight, endeavor not to be there. The easiest gunfight to win is the one you don’t get into. Failing that, bring a long gun. In fact, bring friends with long guns.
Of course, no one never knows when they will be in a gunfight. That means we need to carry a gun all of the time, and carrying long guns is inconvenient, so we carry handguns as a compromise. That’s what handguns are- a compromise. The handgun on your hip is better than the shotgun or rifle in your closet.
It’s simple for me- in a perfect world, you should carry lots of really big, fast moving bullets. All handguns are poor at stopping an attacker. Still, in a full sized handgun, I would carry a large caliber, more powerful handgun over a smaller caliber.
- My M&P9 holds 18 rounds of 9mm, delivering a 115 grain bullet at 1400 FPS, for a total of 500 foot pounds. A handgun in 357 sig is about the same power, but only holds 15 rounds.
- An M&P45 holds 10 rounds, delivering 200 grains at about1000 fps and 500 foot pounds.
- An M&P10 delivers 15 rounds of that 200 grain projectile, but at 1250 fps from a 4.6 inch barrel, meaning you are sending about 700 foot pounds of energy downrange.
Seeing this, you can see that a 10mm holding 15 rounds is a great handgun. Still, I wouldn’t feel undergunned with that M&P9. In fact, I have fullsized M&P’s in 9mm, .357Sig, .40S&W, .45ACP, and 10mm. I love the M&P platform, and any of those calibers would suit me fine.
The problem is that I live in Florida. It’s hot. It’s humid, and open carry it illegal. So as a result, people wear lightweight clothes that make it a challenge to carry full sized handguns, so you leave it at home. Like the rifle in your closet, the handgun in your dresser drawer isn’t doing you any good. As a result, we wind up carrying smaller, more compact handguns. When you start looking at compact handguns, the situation becomes more, shall we say, nuanced.
When it comes to concealing handguns in lightweight clothes, you lose a lot of the advantages of the larger bullets. Now large bullets are slowed down, capacity is reduced.
A subcompact .45 now gives you only get 6 rounds, and the shorter barrel means a slower bullet, perhaps as slow as 800 fps and only 280 foot pounds with a 200 gr bullet.
Similarly, you get the same performance out of .40S&W and out of 10mm with the shortened barrel of a subcompact, and you are now restricted to 8 rounds.
The .357Sig is now delivering 9mm like performance, but with an 8 round magazine.
Subcompacts are where 9mm begins to shine. The Shield Plus is now delivering 13 rounds and with its 3.1 inch barrel you are now sending 115 grain bullets downrange at 1250 fps, delivering 400 foot pounds of energy.
It’s a tradeoff. No handgun is perfect, and each caliber has its advantages and disadvantages. Look at what you are trying to accomplish in light of the restrictions that are being placed upon you by the tactical situation.
That is the reason why I own a lot of handguns, or at least that is how I justify it to myself. To make the manual of arms and shooting easier, I largely only carry one brand. In my case, I shoot the M&P line. You may decide to shoot other models. We all know how rabid fans of the Glock or the 1911 can be. I am not saying that people who shoot those are wrong. I am saying that those handguns are wrong for me. They may be right for you. At least let articles like this get you to think about what you are carrying. If that means you get to buy another gun, is that such a bad idea?
A word about revolvers- I own a few. My little 5 shot model 642 in .38 special gets carried more often than any other. Still, 38special from a 1.88 inch barrel isn’t a great performer. The length is about the same as a compact auto, but Again, compromise. I also have a 4 inch barreled revolver in .357Mag. I don’t carry it as a defensive handgun because, frankly I think revolvers are suboptimal for defensive use- capacity is too low, and reload times are too long.
economics
Keep the Faith
As I am writing this, it is Monday April 7, and the stock markets opened the morning by taking a beating, but before I even finished typing this post had reversed course. I have been saying, and I still believe, that this is a major buying opportunity. I pulled all of my money out of the stock market during last year’s election because I thought the fix was in.
Trump is trying to force two things-
- He wants other countries to loosen tariffs on US goods, so American made products can be sold in other countries
- He wants to make it more cost effective for goods to be made in America
US workers are some of the most productive in the world, but thanks to government regulations like the EPA, OSHA, Obamacare, and other regulatory cost burdens, along with the crushing tariffs that American products face overseas, it is impossible for goods manufactured in America to compete. Trump is trying to change that. That change won’t happen without some blood, sweat, and tears.
That’s where the buying opportunity comes in. Buying while the market is down is the way to go. History shows that market downturns pay off. When the COVID market crash happened, we bought Royal Caribbean (RCL) at $32 a share and sold less than a year later at $112 a share- that is a 350% return.
This time around, I am buying SPY (an S&P 500 index fund), and TSLA (Tesla). We bought 50 shares of Tesla at 240. We are down for now, but I think it will rebound by the end of the year.
Keep the faith. Things in the short term will hurt a little, but you don’t lose money until you sell.
Crime
Tickets are Racist
California has decided that “traditional enforcement methods have had a well-documented disparate impact on communities of color, and implicit or explicit racial bias in police traffic stops puts drivers of color at risk” therefore, traffic tickets are racist.
To correct this, tickets will come with fines that are adjusted based upon the driver’s income level. How this passes through the equal protection clause, I don’t know.
Anti American left
Blatant
Remember the black kid who stabbed and killed the white one because he was accused of sitting in the wrong seat? He is claiming that it was self defense and has a gofundme that has raised $150k so far.
I remember when Gofundme took down the fundraiser for Kyle Rittenhouse.
“GoFundMe’s Terms of Service prohibit raising money for the legal defense of an alleged violent crime,” the company said
It’s this kind of shit that has slowly caused me to become more and more distrusting of companies, of blacks, and violent crime. Gofundme is either racist, anti-gun, or simply just too liberal. Probably a combination of all three. For those reasons, I won’t be donating one cent to any of their fund raisers for any reason.
Gun Laws
Stupid Transplants
A woman is arrested after she holds two kids at gunpoint because they were fishing in the pond behind her house, saying: “If someone goes in your back yard, you can blow their fucking heads off.”
Of course she is wrong, but judging by the accent, this is another Yankee liberal who thinks that the south is filled with gun toting, ignorant rednecks who shoot everything that moves. It turns out that the kids were 15 and 13 year old brothers who were just fishing, and the boys weren’t even on her property. The ignorant Yankee? She was armed with a pellet gun. That still won’t protect this moron from the law- pointing a gun at someone while threatening to kill them is a felony- even if the gun isn’t loaded or real.
Even worse- she threatened to kill two kids for FISHING.
Stop New Yorking my Florida.
Cops
It’s a street in a strange world
Maybe it’s the third world. Two border patrol agents have been caught taking thousands of dollars in bribes to allow people to enter the country through the nation’s busiest port of entry without showing documents. Both men were paid thousands for each vehicle they waved through.
While Almonte was in custody, investigators allegedly seized nearly $70,000 in cash they believe his romantic partner was trying to move to Tijuana. Prosecutors wrote in a court filing that Almonte is potentially facing additional charges for money laundering and obstruction of justice..There have been five US Customs and Border Protection officers assigned to the San Diego area to face similar corruption charges in the last two years.
Keep telling me how we need to defend Federal workforce jobs.
economics
Bring Your Friends With You
The press is filled with stories of people protesting Trump’s policies. If you believe the reports in the MSM, you would have to think that Florida is taking a huge financial hit because Canadians are angry with the US President. The problem is that this take is complete fabricated nonsense. This article in money wise is a great example. In it, the writer claims that Canadians are leaving en masse because of skyrocketing costs brought about by Trump’s tariffs. The cost increases haven’t even happened yet, but even once they do it won’t be that large of a hit. If you read on down the article, you hit the money quote:
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta found that an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports, 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports, and 10% tariffs on other countries could raise consumer prices on everyday retail purchases such as food and beverage items and general merchandise, covering about a quarter of the total consumption basket, by 0.81% to 1.63%, assuming the costs are fully passed to the consumer.
So the tariffs will increase costs by up to 1.63%? That is a fraction of the increase in costs brought about by the Biden inflation. Any costs that are causing people to flee have been going on for years. The media is lying. Again.
The same exact website in January was making the claim that Florida’s insurance rates were skyrocketing because of climate change, and this was the cause for Canadians leaving. Proving that the press hates Trump even more than climate change, less than three weeks later the boogieman had changed and it was no longer climate change, but President Trump that was causing insurance to increase.
The real culprit happened in 2021 when the 12 story Surfside condo collapsed, killing 98 people. The condo wasn’t being maintained, and seawater intrusion had corroded the steel supports. In response, the state of Florida instituted regulations and inspections to require condo buildings be repaired and properly maintained- especially of the buildings are over 3 stories or located near the beach. Nearly 90% of the 1.6 million condos in Florida are more than 30 years old, and most haven’t been inspected or repaired in that time, because the condo associations don’t want to spend the money to do so.
The new law requires associations to have sufficient reserves to cover major repairs and to conduct a survey of reserves every decade. Because of the law, older condos are facing hefty increases to association payments to fund the reserves and repair costs. Condo owners went to Tallahassee and demanded that the state set aside tax dollars to pay for those repairs. Those increased repair and insurance costs are hitting condos hard.
In 2024, Canadians buying vacation homes accounted for 25% of all home sales in Florida. This means that wealthy northerners and Canadians, who are overwhelmingly the owners of beachside condos and were members of condo associations that were voting against paying the costs of properly maintaining the buildings are selling as the cost of owning second homes in Florida is too high, especially when you take the falling value of the Canadian dollar into account.
Real estate agent Gatien Salaun, who owns a waterfront condo in Miami Beach, said what appears to be a recent reduction in average sale prices is largely just buyers negotiating with sellers to eat some of the costs.
“They are simply asking for price reductions that are commensurate with that exact amount that they will have to pay over the next 20 years, 30 years in assessments,” Salaun said. “And the sellers are somewhat stuck in terms of negotiating with the buyer or just paying for the cost themselves.”
Still, the real estate prices in Florida are as high as they are because the weak US dollar (see the price of gold) caused people from other nations, especially Canadians, to buy up a lot of prime US real estate to use as vacation homes. Now that the costs are being realized, they want to sell and leave. Good. Take a friend with you.
To the mainstream media- we are done with your lies.
Illegals
Pull the Other One
We are constantly told by the left that noncitizens can’t vote, and instances of them doing so are ‘vanishingly rare’. Claiming otherwise gets you a ‘fact check’ where your statement is ‘debunked’.
If that is the case, then why would anyone oppose an executive order that enforces current voting laws by ordering the government to crack down on illegal immigrants who vote? Yet, that is exactly what a lawsuit filed by the DNC is all about. Why file a lawsuit against a law that would prevent people from doing what you already claim they aren’t doing?