It’s Wednesday, which means a new collection of great information to make your life safer and more secure!
An easy way to carry medical gear
On Monday I suggested that everyone — regardless of whether they carry a gun or not — should always have the ability to treat trauma that causes massive blood loss. There are a number of ways you can carry lifesaving medical gear on a daily basis, and one of the more popular ways is to carry a kit around your ankle. Short Barrel Shepherd tried out several ankle medical rigs, and found one to be superior: the Safer Faster Defense Responder. (This comes as no surprise to me, as I have one!)
Canes as self defense tools: how practical are they, really?
For years I’ve heard people say that if you couldn’t carry a gun, a cane (or sometimes walking stick) made a good alternative — especially in “non-permissive” environments. I’ll admit to not being a cane expert, but I’ve always thought there must be more to the story. Greg Ellifritz has some experience teaching defensive cane use and clears up many of the misconceptions about them. (No, they’re not really good on an airplane. Read the article for more.)
Yet another reason why I don’t like 9mm revolvers
It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of 9mm revolvers as defensive tools. I’ve owned one or two over the years, but I’ve never kept them for long. One of the problems with them, and one that gets worse as the revolver gets lighter, is bullet migration. This is the situation where unfired bullets are pulled from their casings due to inertia, in the same manner as a reloader’s bullet pulling tool. (In point of fact, the casings are actually pulled off the bullet; the bullet, having much more mass than the light case, tends to stay still due to inertia as the gun’s recoil accelerates the casing backward, pulling it off the bullet.)
This is a problem with all-lead rounds in light revolvers chambered for .38 Special +P or .357 Magnum, but it routinely shows up in 9mm wheelguns as well, particularly the lighter models. Those 9mm rounds simply aren’t crimped to resist the forces involved, and the result can be a jammed cylinder. John Farnam details the issue in this article.
There are those who will vehemently disagree with me, but between the fragility of the moonclips and the bullet migration issues, I see no reason to ever carry a 9mm revolver — especially when there are so many great .38/.357 revolvers in the marketplace today.
Speaking of revolvers…
…Are people still buying them? Yes, yes they are! (I’ll take one issue with the article: if the customer can’t operate the slide of an autoloader, it’s usually because they haven’t been shown the proper technique. I’m all for people buying revolvers, but I don’t like to see people pushed into one because the person behind the counter didn’t know enough to properly identify and correct the problem.)
How close are you to a survival situation?
You might not believe this, but very close. Every winter people get lost driving and end up stuck in the snow, miles from help. Sometimes they survive, other times they don’t. The difference is often in how prepared they are. Read this article to see how one woman suddenly found herself facing a life-threatening event and how she marshaled her resources to survive. (Hint: it’s a lot easier if you plan ahead! I wrote Prepping For Life to get people to think about how they interact with their environment and make plans to survive in plausible scenarios, like being stuck in the snow.)
Prudence, travel, and you
It’s always good to be cautious. Not intentionally putting yourself in danger is one of the fundamental concepts of personal safety. But there is such a thing as being overly cautious, denying yourself wonderful opportunities and adventures. Take, for instance, traveling; many people will tell you not to go to any number of destinations because they’re “not safe”, and yet I know many people who have been to those destinations who tell me the opposite. I generally trust personal experience over hearsay, which is why I’m sharing this very interesting article. It both debunks the notion of travel (in this case, to Mexico) as unsafe but also acknowledges some of the risks in that country — and how to avoid them. Worth reading for a different perspective.
How effective is that fingerprint pad?
Biometric access in the form of fingerprint readers are becoming more and more common. I know many people consider them to be secure, but how true is that? As it happens, the consumer-grade fingerprint readers are fairly easy to fool. This article explains how researchers rather easily managed to create “master keys” for fingerprint sensors. If someone truly wants in, this is one way to do it. This isn’t to say you should or shouldn’t use them, only to point out that they’re not the ultimate solution to keep your information or valuables safe.
– Grant
Opening photo by Backpacker – pixabay.com (CC0 public domain)
The post Your Hump Day Reading List for October 11, 2017 appeared first on www.GrantCunningham.com.
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