Desinfektan Kandang Ayam Online Shop Terlengkap & Terbaik
Desinfektan Cap Badak Obat Penghilang Bau Amonia Kandang Obat Untuk Mengurangi gas Amonia, gas beracun, serta menjadikan kotoran tidak berbau sekaligus untuk sanitasi bio security Heat Stress Menekan pertumbuhan bakteri E-Coli, CRD & bakteri pathogen.
"Lather" came up in the "Rock Mix" that Spotify made especially for me today, as I was smiling — babywide? — on my morning run today, the day after my birthday, my 71st birthday, or as I like to put it, the first day of my 72nd year.
Lather's friends in the song — who've "stopped being boys" — are 33 and 27. I mean one (the banker) is 33 and the other (the commander of his "very own tank") is 27. They're not each 33 + 27. But I can see that those numbers add up to 60, and I am 11 years old than that. "Lather" is a song facing the confusion of becoming 30ish. Lather himself has just turned 30, and he seems to be clinging to outright babyhood, as the band suggests maybe that's just fine... or good enough for Lather anyway.
It's a whole other matter breaking into the decade that begins with a 7, which I like to come out and say is the 8th decade of life. Speak plainly! And look for what is good. Some people — the glass-half-empty folks — say that as you get older, with more of your days behind you, each day is a smaller percentage of the total time you have lived, and thus, the days seem insubstantial and short. But the other way to see it is that is that each day now is a bigger percentage of the time you have left. Today might be 1% of the rest of your life. It might be 100%! Are you giving today what it deserves? It is so much.
As I listened to the old rock songs that Spotify had strung together for me, I visualized myself — I was running through the woods — looking over at the me who existed at the time I first heard a particular song — it was "Too Many People" — and I waved at myself in the 70s and sent the message that everything will be fine when you are in your 70s. You'll be able to run — in the woods! — and you'll have this music in your ears because a computer — an "electronic brain," as you call it — will know you like it and will pump it directly into your head.
And you won't care so much about your birthday, because 2 days after your birthday will be something called your "bloggiversary." There will be something you do for the first time on January 14, 2004, and you will proceed to do it every single day for 18 years and counting....
Surprise! The beer-rating app Untappd can be used to track the location history of military personnel. The social network has over eight million mostly European and North American users, and its features allow researchers to uncover sensitive information about said users at military and intelligence locations around the world.
For people in the military, neither drinking beer nor using social media is newsworthy on its own. But Untappd users log hundreds, often thousands of time-stamped location data points. These locations are neatly sorted in over 900 categories, which can be as diverse and specific as “botanic garden.” “strip club,” “gay bar,” “west-Ukrainian restaurant,” and “airport gate.” As the result of this, the app allows anyone to trace the movements of other users between sensitive locations — as well as their favorite bars, hotels, restaurants, neighbourhoods, and, sometimes, even private residences.
Examples of users that can be tracked this way include a U.S. drone pilot, along with a list of both domestic and overseas military bases he has visited, a naval officer, who checked in at the beach next to Guantanamo’s bay detention center as well as several times at the Pentagon, and a senior intelligence officer with over seven thousand check-ins, domestic and abroad. Senior officials at the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force are included as well.
Cross-referencing these check-ins with other social media makes it easy to find these individuals’ homes. Their profiles and the pictures they post also reveal family, friends, and colleagues.
The article goes on to reveal the location of the CIA training base known as "The Farm", based on Untappd data. I daresay the CIA isn't terribly happy about that.
This sort of thing must be an ongoing nightmare for security specialists. Russia has gone so far as to ban the possession (let alone the use) of smartphones by its military personnel assigned to locations such as the Ukrainian separatist "states", Syria, etc. Needless to say, such prohibition is honored more in the breach than in the observance, which is how many photographs taken in those areas have been circulated in the West. The US armed forces have imposed similar (although less draconian) restrictions, and have faced similar problems. Remember how a fitness tracking app revealed the locations of otherwise secret US bases, a few years ago?
How many more such tell-tale apps are out there, in how many countries? One suspects that US intelligence services may by now have a specialist division checking such data in every nation around the world, to see what intelligence might be gleaned from them. I'm willing to bet China and Russia, and probably Israel, are doing likewise.
We're looking at maintaining/upgrading/replacing the toilets in our home. To do that to our existing units is easy enough, but it occurs to me that we might be able to find better engineered toilets if we shop around. I'm aware, for example, that some toilets are advertised as being able to flush golf balls. That's all very well if you want to flush golf balls, but we want to flush the more usual . . . ah . . . debris. So, what does it best?
Can any of my readers recommend a particularly good make or model from their own experience? A reasonably economical one would be good - we can't spend a fortune on it. Solid gold toilets are right out!
I was initially puzzled to read about a tie-up between Walmart, the nation's largest retailer, and thredUP, a San Francisco-based used clothing reseller. However, Barron's put it in perspective.
Walmart is taking a new tack in its effort to expand in e-commerce.
The company said this week that it formed a partnership with the clothing reseller ThredUp in a move that will see Walmart’s website offer secondhand clothing. The giant retailer will take a cut of the revenue.
Barron’s has written before about how ThredUp hopes to capitalize on a number of trends in the industry, from the treasure-hunt mentality that has fueled off-price retailers to millennials’ desire to shop more sustainably. We’ve also noted how Walmart has been willing to spend to boost its online presence in clothing, buying up brands like Modcloth and Jet.com to experiment with new ways to reach consumers.
. . .
The latest deal with ThredUp isn’t an acquisition. It will allow ThredUp products to appear on Walmart’s website, with Walmart providing free shipping for purchases over $35 and receiving a share of the sales.
Paying Walmart a commission seems like a reasonable trade-off for ThredUp, given that the partnership will give it access to a huge new audience.
Yet Walmart could also benefit from the deal, as it will have a large number of brands added to its site and get a piece of the preowned clothing market. Instead of making a risky acquisition, Walmart is mimicking Amazon.com, offering access to its site to a third-party seller.
What we're seeing is the emergence of online shopping malls. In a physical shopping mall, people go "to the mall" to shop at an anchor tenant - a big store. As they go to and from it, or relax with a snack in the food court, they see and are attracted to other stores in the same location. The big stores attract customers to the small ones. Online, customers go to Amazon.com or Walmart.com because they know they can get most of what they need there. If, in the process, they can also be exposed to other businesses, and find interesting products there, they'll do their shopping through the main site, which gets a cut of the revenues from such transactions. Ergo: an online shopping mall.
I think we'll see more and more of this in future. The big e-commerce sites basically have a lock on the market right now. Smaller businesses would have a torrid time of it trying to break such a stranglehold from outside. Therefore, as the old saying goes, "If you can't beat them, join them".
This may have an impact on independent authors and their books, too. Right now, that market is owned by Amazon.com, which has made itself all but indispensable to most indie authors and publishers. If another retailer such as Walmart can offer an alternative online home for them, with terms and conditions at least as good (if not better) than Amazon's and comparable market penetration, perhaps with better advertising and publicity opportunities, that might open up the market to more competition. That'll be good for writers - and it can't be a bad thing for readers, either.
In one sense, I suppose we should actually be grateful to the coronavirus pandemic for the way it's highlighted how our economy has been structured around a series of assumptions, which in turn have driven decisions made to implement those assumptions. The whole house of cards is predicated on nothing disturbing the arrangements thus made. Throw a wild card into the equation, and massive disruption ensues - and COVID-19 has been one heck of a wild card!
Let me illustrate with a few examples. Nobody in their right mind would argue that food safety is unimportant. Upton Sinclair's novel "The Jungle", serialized in 1905 and published in book form the following year, exposed the appalling conditions in Chicago's meat-packing industry, leading to the establishment of what we know today as the Food and Drug Administration. This regulates the food and drug industries, their methods of production, the safety of their products, etc. In order to make such control easier, it was advantageous for many smaller plants to be consolidated into fewer, larger ones, so that fewer inspectors could supervise and control processing and production. Over time, this consolidation increased, particularly as it became more and more expensive to attract and retain sufficient inspectors with the specialized knowledge and qualifications needed to oversee operations.
Today, there are relatively few meat-processing plants, and those that exist tend to be very large. Cattle, pigs, sheep, poultry, etc. are brought to them over long distances for processing. When these plants were hit by COVID-19 infections and closed, consumer shortages inevitably resulted, since there was nowhere else to take the animals for processing. Because they could not be slaughtered, their numbers increased very rapidly, augmented by ongoing production on the "factory farms" that feed animals into the system on a regular basis. The result has been the euthanasia of literally millions of animals and birds, and the disposal of their carcasses in landfills - even while consumers were having to make do with a more limited selection and lower quantities of meat available in stores. Farmers and processors have lost tens of millions of dollars, all because the system was set up for massively large-scale processing in relatively few plants. A more distributed system, with a lot more smaller plants situated closer to the farms, would probably have been less hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, and supplies would probably have been maintained at a more stable level.
Another example is "just-in-time" manufacturing. In the name of efficiency and the most productive application of capital, factories have largely been set up to keep minimal stocks of their input components (raw materials, parts, etc.) on hand. They receive them "just in time" to use them on the production line. (This has been reinforced by so-called "inventory taxes" levied by some states. Where these are applied, it actually costs businesses money to keep large stocks of inventory, rather than move it in and out as quickly as possible.) As a result, the factory-to-consumer pipeline is a high-volume, low-reserve proposition. Goods move from factory, to distributor, to store, to consumer on a day-by-day basis. There are no major reserves anywhere, so that a breakdown in that chain of movement inevitably results in shortages downstream of the break within a very short time. We saw this earlier in the pandemic, where auto factories shut down within a couple of weeks of critical supplies of parts being interrupted. It's since spread to almost every high-technology industry.
That, in turn, has been made worse by the global supply chain. In the name of saving money on wages, buildings and other production costs, many companies shifted production of their components and finished products to lower-cost countries. China, in particular, has benefited from this over the past few decades. When manufacturing in those countries, and/or shipping of their production from source to market, was affected by the pandemic, supplies already on hand dried up fast, leaving chronic shortages that are still plaguing us. (The availability of personal protective equipment for hospital personnel, such as masks, gloves, gowns, etc., is a well-known example.)
The question now becomes: should our production and distribution systems, facilities and practices be revised in the light of the pandemic? This seems like an obvious solution to many people - but it will involve massive expense. To set up new factories in our own country, and have many smaller facilities rather than fewer, larger ones, and keep reserves of products in case of disruptions . . . we're talking billions, probably trillions of dollars in the short to medium term to accomplish those changes. They may be desirable, and offer the only practical alternative to what we have at present; but if we can't afford them, they're going to remain a pipe-dream. What's more, if private enterprise is expected to accomplish all that on its own, it'll soak up a vast amount of money - something those who own the money will resist, because it'll take profits out of their pockets. Also, countries where our products are presently made will do everything in their power to keep their factories open. They may reduce their prices so much that it's uneconomical to make goods anywhere else, or impose economic sanctions to make the cost of moving production much higher than it would otherwise have been. (China is taking all those steps at present, and being very unpleasant to countries that resist its pressures.)
We're in an "irresistible force meets immovable object" moment here. What will the outcome be? Nobody knows right now. The only thing we can be sure of is that disruptions are likely to continue.
The current shape of our economy has proved to be inadequate to cope with a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic. We can reshape it to be more flexible and responsive, but only at a very high cost. Are we willing to pay that, as a society? Are the owners of current means of production willing to forgo short-term profit to change the way they do business, in the hope of long-term stability of production? Are our politicians willing to forgo short-term tax money (particularly inventory taxes), and provide tax credits, in order to make it easier and more affordable for businesses to change their methods of production?
Nobody knows the answers to those questions right now. What we do have is a stark choice between a centrally managed economy (the socialist ideal) and a free-market one, where businesses decide for themselves how to change and the market tells them (by voting with its wallet) whether they've made good choices or bad. Given government ineptitude in handling the coronavirus pandemic, I know which option I prefer.
What about individuals and families? Each of us needs to take these things into account in planning for our own future. We should determine what our "essentials" are - the things that we really need to have on hand to cater for what's important to us. Examples:
We need a sound, reliable basic food supply. It's not a bad idea for every family to have at least one month's food in reserve (what my wife calls a "deep pantry") in case of shortages or emergency. I prefer a three-month supply, and some people try to keep a year or more's food on hand.
If we rely on a vehicle for transportation, we should consider keeping basic consumables - oil, brake fluid, transmission fluid, filters, belts, etc. - on hand, so that if there's any disruption in factory supplies, we can keep it operating for at least a few months. A few tools to allow us to change fluids and do other basic maintenance would not be amiss, either. Also, we should probably be proactive in changing tires, shock-absorbers, etc. before they actually wear out, so that we can be sure they'll have a reasonable useful life if supplies of replacement components are disrupted.
If we have particular interests, sports or hobbies, how about keeping enough reserve supplies that we can continue with them during interruptions? For example, I enjoy the shooting sports. I've made sure that I have a decent reserve supply of ammunition, so that in a sudden shortage (such as we're currently experiencing, and which looks set fair to continue for at least months, if not years) I can continue to enjoy my hobby.
What about clothing? Nobody can stock a complete spare wardrobe, but if you have specific needs - business clothing for office wear, or workshop clothing for blue-collar workers, etc. - there's no harm in keeping a small reserve supply of it, particularly safety gear such as work boots, head and eye protection, and so on. That way, a shortage of supply won't prevent you working, or be embarrassing if you have to wear visibly old, worn-out clothing.
We live in an electrically powered world. How many of our essential items of equipment rely on batteries? Do we have adequate stocks of spare batteries? What if we suffer local brownouts or blackouts if the electricity supply is cut off due to a lack of spare parts? Do we have emergency measures (e.g. battery powered flashlights or lanterns) in place? What about recharging things like cellphones, tablets, laptop computers, etc.? A small generator (or, at the very least, a solar charger) might well be regarded as an indispensable accessory today. If we have well-stocked freezers, it's doubly so.
Those are just a few ideas. If you have more, please share them with us in Comments.
As part of my project to upgrade some of my friends' rifles, I've been looking into some of the latest "game" techniques (specifically for 3-gun competition), trying to get a sense of the state of the art, and what can (or should) carry over from competition to actual defensive use. My recent threepartseries of articles on AR-15-type personal defense rifles grew out of that project.
I've long been a fan of backup iron sights on a defensive rifle, co-witnessed through the main optical sight, so they can be brought into action quickly if need be. However, I've now noted that most competitors in 3-gun competition have moved to offset backup sights, mounted at a 45-degree angle to the normal line of sight. A quick twist of the rifle at their shoulder moves the main sight off to one side and brings the backup sight(s) into line, allowing them to "stay in the fight" if something goes wrong with their primary unit. I've known of the existence of such offset sights for a long time, but I've not used them, because of the ease with which they can strike and/or get caught on obstacles while moving through confined spaces. That can not only snag the rifle and slow your progress, it can even knock them right off the gun unless they're very strongly mounted. That's hardly an optimum situation.
Three factors are causing me to reconsider my earlier, negative opinion about offset backup sights. The first, below, demonstrates that if the front and/or back lenses of the primary sight are affected by weather or debris (i.e. sand, mud or what have you), co-witnessed iron sights will suffer from the same problem.
I should have thought about that issue myself: but in my days in uniform, we didn't have optics on our battle rifles, so the problem didn't arise. I'll be interested to know how often it occurs in action in today's military. If any reader has experienced it, please tell us about it in Comments. I can also see that, if opaque protective caps are in place on the primary optical sight, that will render the co-witnessed backup sights useless too. If the rifle has to be used in a hurry against a sudden threat, angled backup sights won't suffer from that problem, allowing you to respond faster and more effectively.
Another video, below, shows how offset backup sights can be easily and accurately zeroed by using an offset bipod to aid in the process. That's not a solution I'd thought about, but it's a very good idea. As soon as I saw it, I tried it with one of my own bipods, and found it worked well. (See further down this article for offset rail mounts for that purpose.)
The third factor is the problem of getting backup sights snagged on obstacles, and either jarred out of zero or knocked completely off the rifle. This remains a problem: but I note that there's now a plethora of steel (rather than plastic) angled iron sights out there, at much more reasonable prices than I've seen in the past. They may be tough enough to deal with that problem. I'm used to Magpul asking well into three figures for its MBUS Pro offset sights (shown below), which until recently appear to have dominated the field.
However, there are now many competing offset backup sights at much lower prices. I can't comment on the quality of most of them, as many appear to come out of China and to copy each other's design. I tested a couple for my current project. The clear winner (so far) has been Acme Machine's 45 degree offset sights, shown below.
They're fully adjustable, made of steel, and look and feel plenty tough enough to stand up to their task. What's more, they're on sale right now at only $14.99 per pair, which is a bargain in anyone's language. (No, Acme isn't paying or compensating me to shill for them: I just like to let my readers know about bargains when I find them.) After testing them, I've ordered half a dozen sets to mount to my friends' rifles.
Many 3-gun competitors use offset-mounted optical sights (red or green dot units) for backup purposes. That may be fine in a sporting environment, but I don't think they're optimum on a defensive rifle, for three reasons.
Any bad conditions that muck up your main optical sight are probably going to do the same thing to your backup optical sight.
Optical sights are typically not as tough as iron sights, and may be disabled by hard knocks against obstacles. Standard sights are less likely to be put out of action that way (although they may need to be re-zeroed).
If batteries are going to fail, Murphy's Law tells us they'll fail at the worst possible time. I don't want something as critical as a backup sight going out of action for that reason, just when I may desperately need it! Iron sights don't use batteries. Q.E.D.
Therefore, I won't be using or recommending optical sights as backups on my friends' rifles.
I also note with interest that offset backup sights aren't necessarily restricted to AR-15-style weapons. I put a set on a Marlin lever-action 1894 carbine for test purposes, and they worked just fine. I used one fitted with an XS Sight Systems scout rail, illustrated below.
The backup sights hanging off to one side looked odd, compared to what we expect a traditional lever-action rifle to look like, but they functioned just fine, and a red-dot sight snugged down between them with plenty of slots to spare. I imagine a normal telescopic sight, mounted in high rings, would do as well, with enough height to clear the relatively low, flat mounting clamps of the offset iron sights. So, if your preferred defensive rifle is a lever-action weapon (which isn't a bad choice - it's as effective today as when the Winchester was the "assault rifle" of its time, back in the Old West, and helping Turkey to smash a Russian offensive at Plevna in 1877), you can still have backup sights if you want them, provided you can fit a long enough Picatinny-style sight rail to accommodate them. Such rails are also available from XS for some other rifles and shotguns, although generally much shorter, and other manufacturers offer them too.
The only caveat I'd add is that for offset use, steel sights are probably the best choice. I've often used plastic sights like Magpul's MBUS units as in-line backups. The plastic units aren't nearly as strong as steel ones, but if they're folded down out of the way most of the time, they don't take much punishment; and their lighter weight is an asset when you're trying to shave ounces off a fighting rifle. However, if they're going to be stuck out to the side of the weapon, where they're more likely to hit obstacles, their plastic construction is unlikely to be tough enough to withstand it. I therefore suggest that they're best reserved for in-line use on top of the rifle, where they're better protected against such impacts.
What zero to use on backup sights? I use 50 yards. For an AR-15 style rifle, a 50-yard zero will hold on target anywhere out to 200 yards, which is about the limit for effective use of iron sights for most of us (particularly for older eyes - I daresay my actual effective limit is half that by now). Backup sights aren't designed to take down an enemy at 500 yards. They're to deal with an immediate problem, one so imminent that you don't have time to fix your main sight. Such threats aren't likely to be far away.
Finally, if money is tight, there's a low-cost solution. Simply switch your existing backup sights from the top of your rifle to a 45-degree offset angle rail mount. There are many of them on the market (I've used this one with no problems: they come 3 to a pack, so they cost less than $5 apiece).
You can mount your existing sight on that rail, and have all the benefits of an offset sight without having to spend more than a few dollars on the mount. If you really want to mount an optical red- or green-dot sight for backup use, they can accommodate that, too. Just remember to use blue Loctite or a similar product on the threads of their screws, to keep them in place, and don't over-tighten the screws, which might strip the threads.
The New Yorker has a very interesting (and very long) article about a man's obsession with reaching the bottom of the deepest point in every ocean, and how he set about it. In the process, he built - as a private venture, using his own money - the only vessel in existence certified to dive to any depth, anywhere on Earth.
Here's a short excerpt.
Most submarines go down several hundred metres, then across; this one was designed to sink like a stone. It was the shape of a bulging briefcase, with a protruding bulb at the bottom. This was the pressure hull—a titanium sphere, five feet in diameter, which was sealed off from the rest of the submersible and housed the pilot and all his controls. Under the passenger seat was a tuna-fish sandwich, the pilot’s lunch. He gazed out of one of the viewports, into the blue. It would take nearly four hours to reach the bottom.
Sunlight cuts through the first thousand feet of water. This is the epipelagic zone, the layer of plankton, kelp, and reefs. It contains the entire ecosystem of marine plants, as well as the mammals and the fish that eat them. An Egyptian diver once descended to the limits of this layer. The feat required a lifetime of training, four years of planning, a team of support divers, an array of specialized air tanks, and a tedious, thirteen-hour ascent, with constant decompression stops, so that his blood would not be poisoned and his lungs would not explode.
The submersible dropped at a rate of about two and a half feet per second. Twenty minutes into the dive, the pilot reached the midnight zone, where dark waters turn black. The only light is the dim glow of bioluminescence—from electric jellies, camouflaged shrimp, and toothy predators with natural lanterns to attract unwitting prey. Some fish in these depths have no eyes—what use are they? There is little to eat. Conditions in the midnight zone favor fish with slow metabolic rates, weak muscles, and slimy, gelatinous bodies.
An hour into the descent, the pilot reached ten thousand feet—the beginning of the abyssal zone. The temperature is always a few degrees above freezing, and is unaffected by the weather at the surface. Animals feed on “marine snow”: scraps of dead fish and plants from the upper layers, falling gently through the water column. The abyssal zone, which extends to twenty thousand feet, encompasses ninety-seven per cent of the ocean floor.
After two hours in free fall, the pilot entered the hadal zone, named for the Greek god of the underworld. It is made up of trenches—geological scars at the edges of the earth’s tectonic plates—and although it composes only a tiny fraction of the ocean floor, it accounts for nearly fifty per cent of the depth.
Past twenty-seven thousand feet, the pilot had gone beyond the theoretical limit for any kind of fish. (Their cells collapse at greater depths.) After thirty-five thousand feet, he began releasing a series of weights, to slow his descent. Nearly seven miles of water was pressing on the titanium sphere. If there were any imperfections, it could instantly implode.
The submarine touched the silty bottom, and the pilot, a fifty-three-year-old Texan named Victor Vescovo, became the first living creature with blood and bones to reach the deepest point in the Tonga Trench.
It's a pretty amazing story about a man driven to achieve what had never been done before, and the team he assembled to do it. It's very long, but I think it's worth the time it'll take to read it. Highly recommended.
That's the question the BBC asks in an intriguing article examining how the size, structure, layout and systems of our cities may contribute to the spread of disease, and how they might be changed to prevent that. It's a long article, and has a lot of "green" propaganda in it, but it also has some interesting suggestions. Here are a few excerpts.
Modern cities weren’t designed to cope with life during a pandemic, and this upside-down way of living has turned them into “a disorganised array of disconnected bedrooms and studios”, says Lydia Kallipoliti, assistant professor of architecture at The Cooper Union in New York. This layout might have made sense when cities were internationally connected hubs filled with millions of people working, commuting, sightseeing, drinking, dancing and hugging one another without a second thought. But that world seems a long way off now.
The 21st Century has so far seen Sars, Mers, Ebola, bird flu, swine flu and now Covid-19. If we have indeed entered an era of pandemics, how might we design the cities of tomorrow so that the outdoors doesn’t become a no-go zone, but remains a safe and habitable space?
. . .
So making different use of our current spaces, implementing further sanitation and transitioning toward more room for pedestrians are all going to be key features in a pandemic-resilient city of the future. But one of the biggest changes to our cities won’t be so visible as a fancy new building or a big new park, according to Davina Jackson, author of Data cities: How satellites are transforming architecture and design.
“Cities of the future are going to have to be designed to deal with completely invisible flows [like a global virus], and that’s where the data mapping comes in.”
She gives an example which brings us back to the urban gut of a city: researchers at the Senseable City Lab at MIT placed sensors into sewers to detect concentrations of illegal drugs and harmful bacteria in specific areas. A city built for a pandemic would likely be filled with hidden sensors to help map the spread of disease.
Another important aspect in building a city resilient to pandemics is thinking about how to source food ... She suggests that to reduce risk, our cities may need to become more localised and self-sufficient in the future. “If you had a city, for example, that could feed itself ... It’s not like each place has to be an island, but that there’s some kind of sense of balance and sustainability that you can see within your own settlement.”
There are already examples of urban farming feeding millions when there is little other choice. During World War Two Americans planted 20 million household vegetable plots, producing nine million lbs of produce each year and amounting to 44% of the US harvest, but the challenge of building a self-sufficient city is still a huge one.
. . .
Our homes will need to change too. In an effort to make them more energy and heat efficient, many workspaces, flats and apartment blocks don’t have operable windows. But if we are to going to be spending more time indoors, our houses will need to be better ventilated and offer more light, according to the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture’s Kallipoliti. She describes the need to avoid something called “sick building syndrome”, which is what happens “when buildings [are] entirely sealed and start recirculating pathogens through their systems”.
I think a large part of the solution may be a greater emphasis on working from home or in regional centers, as we discussed yesterday. If jobs can be done without requiring people to be concentrated in big cities and city centers, I think a lot of people will jump at the chance to move to smaller towns with a lower cost of living and better quality of life, and telecommute to their jobs from there. That might be inimical to the "green city" advocates, who want everyone to occupy minimal space, use public rather than private transport, and be "less of a burden on nature" . . . but it'll be very practical.
I was amused to discover this video clip from the British TV program Top Gear. In it, a McLaren Speedtail sports car is pitted against one of Britain's STOVL F-35B strike aircraft. It's a lot of fun.
He used the term "goldbeaters-skin" when describing the building of the hydrogen gas bags that provided lift to the airship. I'd never heard of it, so I looked it up. Wikipedia informed me:
Goldbeater's skin is the processed outer membrane of the intestine of an animal, typically an ox, valued for its strength against tearing. The term derives from its traditional use as durable layers interleaved between sheets of gold stock during the process of making gold leaf by goldbeating, as a batch process producing many "leaves" at the same time. In the early modern production of airships, application of its high strength-to-weight ratio and reliability were crucial for building at least the largest examples.
To manufacture goldbeater's skin, the gut of oxen (or other cattle) is soaked in a dilute solution of potassium hydroxide, washed, stretched, beaten flat and thin, and treated chemically to prevent putrefaction. A pack of 1,000 pieces of goldbeater's skin requires the gut of about 400 oxen and is 1 inch (25 mm) thick.
Up to 120 sheets of gold laminated with goldbeater's skin can be beaten at the same time, since the skin is thin and elastic and does not tear under heavy goldbeating. The resultant thickness of gold leaf can be as small as 1 μm-thick.
. . .
Large quantities of goldbeater's skin were used to make the gas bags of early balloons created by the Royal Engineers at Chatham, Kent starting in 1881–82 culminating in 1883 with "The Heron", of 10,000 cu ft capacity. The method of preparing and making gas-tight joins in the skins was known only to a family from Alsatia called Weinling who were employed by the RE for many years. The British had a monopoly on the technique until around 1912 when the Germans adopted the material for the internal gas bags of the "Zeppelin" rigid airships, exhausting the available supply: about 200,000 sheets were used for a typical World War I Zeppelin, while the USS Shenandoah needed 750,000 sheets. The sheets were joined together and folded into impermeable layers.
To my surprise, I learned that goldbeaters skin is still used to this day, not only for goldbeating, but also in the manufacture of hygrometers, the repair of vellum manuscripts, and to seal oboe mouthpieces. One would have thought that so relatively primitive a substance would have been replaced by a synthetic alternative by now, but apparently that hasn't happened. Perhaps the market for it is too small to justify the expense.
One of the biggest container ships in the world, the MSC Anna, recently visited California. Here's a video report about her arrival.
What I found most interesting was the comment that she'd come to collect empty containers, and take them back to China. This is a vitally important part of re-establishing international trade. With the shutdown across the globe, containers that were en route to their destinations were delivered - and then just sat there, with no way to get them back to the factories that sent them. Without those containers, the factories couldn't pack goods for export, even if they got their production lines running again. There was basically a complete, almost unbridgeable disconnect between producer and consumer, particularly when most container shipping shut down.
It's encouraging to see so large a ship filled with thousands upon thousands of empty containers. May they soon be filled again!
(The ship itself is an absolute monster, posing all sorts of challenges to pilots and port staff. You can read about that in this article. I found it very interesting.)
. . . this wasn't just a comic! Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.
The only improvement I can think of would be to have the CEO try to call 911 to complain - only to find it's been outsourced to India, and the staff there speak English with an accent so heavy it's almost indecipherable.
In our previous articles on this subject, we examined what equipment to add to our rifles, and answered questions from readers. Today I'd like to tackle one of the most controversial issues: what ammunition to select for defensive use. Perhaps inevitably, the quick answer is, "It depends".
There are many factors affecting our choice of ammo. In the case of the AR-15-style rifle, it's complicated because the cartridge it fires (usually the 5.56x45mm NATO round, or the .223 Remington lower-pressure civilian version of that round) is a compromise. It does some things more or less adequately, but seldom does all of them exceptionally well. You can read about why it was adopted here. Briefly, it was initially designed to provide military personnel with a round that would be effective at "typical" combat ranges (100-300 yards), with less recoil and greater controllability (particularly in full-auto fire) than its predecessors (the 7.62x51mm NATO round - .308 Winchester in civilian guise - and, before that, the venerable .30-06 Springfield). It also had to be substantially lighter than its predecessors, so that an infantryman could carry more ammunition and thereby stay in the fight longer without needing resupply.
The initial military-issue round, as used in the Vietnam War, has become known as the M193; a 55-grain bullet traveling at approximately 3,100-3,200 feet per second. The first iteration of the M16 rifle had a rifling twist rate of 1-in-12 (i.e. the rifling made one complete turn every 12 inches of barrel length, or 1.67 times in the 20-inch length of the rifle's barrel). This stabilized the 55gr. bullet enough for accuracy, but allowed it to "tumble" in flesh soon after entering the body. It caused serious wounds in the first few inches of penetration.
Some years later, the military decided that it was desirable to shoot accurately at longer range, and penetrate a typical Soviet-issue steel helmet at a range of up to 600 yards. This led to the development of the M855 round (NATO designation SS109), a 62-grain green-tipped round incorporating a steel penetrator. It offered much better penetration and long-range accuracy, but required a tighter twist rate to stabilize it, and seldom tumbled in flesh. It often made a neat "knitting-needle" type hole, straight through the body, and therefore did not disable opponents as quickly or effectively as the earlier M193 round. (There are numerous combat reports of enemy fighters in Afghanistan and Iraq absorbing 6-8 solid torso hits with M855, but still being able to fight back until blood loss, or a more effective central nervous system hit, took effect. You'll find a more in-depth comparison of the M193 and M855 rounds here.)
Combat experience in Afghanistan and Iraq led to many experiments over the past couple of decades to find a round with greater long-range accuracy and terminal effectiveness, plus greater disabling effect on enemy personnel, to stop them shooting back. Demand was driven by special forces units in particular. Their needs and input led to the development of the Mk. 262 round; a 77-grain bullet with a so-called "Open Tip Match" (OTM) hollow point that was not designed primarily for expansion, but to shift mass to the rear of the bullet, promoting long-range stability. (You can read more about its development here.) A cannelure on the projectile guarded against bullet setback, and promoted fragmentation and tumbling in flesh.
Versions of this round are now produced by several manufacturers in the USA, and by IMI in Israel. It's not ideal for barrier penetration (of which more later), but it offers excellent long-range performance compared to its predecessors, and superior terminal ballistics against human targets. However, such heavy-for-caliber bullets require a tight rifling twist to stabilize them: 1-in-7 or 1-in-8 inches is typical. If your rifling is looser than that (1-in-9 or less), your barrel may not fully stabilize those rounds, resulting in reduced accuracy. Test them in your firearm before deciding whether to buy a good supply of them, and if necessary replace your barrel with a tighter-twist one (something that's easy to do with AR-15-pattern rifles, and relatively inexpensive).
Two other approaches were adopted for military ammunition. The US Marine Corps developed what it calls the Mk. 318 Mod 0 round, designed to penetrate barriers better while remaining capable of inflicting disabling injury on the far side. It's an open-tipped match round like the Mk. 262, although it's 20% lighter. (It appears very similar in its effects to the new FBI round, of which more below.) Meanwhile, the US Army put a lot of effort into improving the standard M855 round, producing the lead-free M855A1. It operates at significantly higher pressures than M855, which has led to reports of increased wear on rifles firing it; but it's claimed to offer better penetration through barriers, and much improved terminal ballistics in flesh. Neither the Mk. 318 Mod 0 or M855A1 are sold on the civilian market, although some examples appear to have "fallen off trucks" and made their way into private hands now and then. For training purposes and outside combat zones, both the Marines and the Army are still using the standard M855 round by the truckload.
Law enforcement requirements have led in a different direction. Cops usually have no choice but to take on a bad guy, to stop him injuring others. They mostly can't choose when, where or how to engage. Therefore, they need a bullet that can both penetrate cover (e.g. auto bodies or glass, doors to buildings, etc.) and inflict disabling injury, to stop a criminal in his tracks. They also typically work at much shorter ranges than the average military engagement, and with innocent bystanders in close proximity; so they need to avoid over-penetration, to reduce the risk to them. What's more, they're not bound by the Hague Convention strictures forbidding expanding bullets, which the US armed forces observe even though the USA was not a signatory to the Conventions.
For general-purpose use, law enforcement has therefore gravitated towards expanding rounds such as Hornady's widely-used TAP (Tactical Application Police) series in various bullet weights. For short-barreled carbines and urban use, many specialist units such as SWAT and hostage rescue teams have adopted bonded soft-point loads. A highly regarded and very knowledgeable ammunition expert had this to say in 2010 about the FBI's chosen solution:
The FBI has completed their testing process and awarded a 5.56 mm ammunition contract for up to $97 million dollars. This award is now public information and appears unique in several ways. Besides being perhaps the largest ammunition contract in FBI history, it is also the first time the FBI has mandated a true 5.56 mm pressure loading, rather than the typical anemic .223 pressure loadings that have generally been marketed to LE agencies. The 5.56 mm load offers approximately an extra 200 fps--helping performance out of short barrel weapons and enhancing function when rifles are dirty or in dusty conditions. The new FBI contract also required that the ammunition be packaged on stripper clips to aid in more rapid loading of magazines. Finally, it is the first multi-award carbine ammo contract for the FBI--both Federal Cartridge and Winchester were judged to offer ammunition which met the contract criteria. Numerous other Federal LE agencies are authorized to purchase off this contract.
The 5.56 mm Federal 62 gr Trophy Bonded Bear Claw (TBBC) bonded JSP load is XM556FBIT3.
The 5.56 mm Winchester 64 gr solid base bonded JSP is Q3313 on stripper clips/RA556B in 20 rd boxes.
Both of these loads are the best barrier blind 5.56 mm loads ever produced for LE use; they offer outstanding terminal performance, even after first defeating intermediate barriers like vehicle windshields.
(Note the similarity - on paper, at any rate - between the Federal load for the FBI and the US Marine Corps' Mk. 318 Mod 0 round, discussed above.)
A brief explanation of terms might be useful before we go any further. The term "bonded", when applied to a bullet, means that its outer jacket and inner core (the former usually copper, the latter usually lead) are engineered to stay together upon impact, ensuring that the bullet remains intact instead of fragmenting, which might result in over-penetration of some fragments and expose bystanders to risk. "Barrier blind" performance means that even after penetrating a barrier such as auto bodies or glass, the bullet will not disintegrate, and will perform substantially as well in human flesh as if there were no barrier at all.
The Federal FBIT3 load for the FBI has also been sold under the SBCT3 designation for non-FBI contracts, and is currently available to civilians through a few suppliers under that designation (here's one that had it in stock at the time of writing). Sadly, it's very expensive (well over a dollar per round), although that's no more than good-quality hunting ammunition costs these days. I have a little of the original FBIT3, and guard it jealously. Nosler makes a near-equivalent round in the form of their .223 Defense Rifle Ammunition, using a 64-grain bonded bullet. The same bullet has been loaded to 5.56mm pressures by other manufacturers; for example, some years ago I tested a version from Beck Ammunition with good results, although it's no longer in their catalog.
Bullets with exposed lead at the tip (such as those mentioned in the previous paragraph) have two potential drawbacks. The first is that they may not feed well in some AR-15-style weapons, because the latter were designed around military-style full metal jacket rounds. Their feed ramps may cause drag against exposed lead bullet tips (particularly in lower-cost, less-well-engineered firearms). Therefore, if you want to use such bullets, it's essential that you test them thoroughly to make sure the combination is reliable. I suggest putting at least 200 rounds downrange through each and every rifle or carbine in which you intend to use them, without a single malfunction, before trusting your life to them. Also, make sure all your magazines can feed them without any problems. Furthermore, you'll need to keep the feed ramps of your weapon scrupulously lead-free, so plan on more intensive and more frequent maintenance and cleaning. That's vitally important.
The second drawback is that such bullets are ballistically and aerodynamically less efficient than pointed styles, with different mass distribution and potentially greater drag. The combination can result in lower accuracy. I've found that my rifles and carbines will deliver 1-2 MOA all day with conventional full-metal-jacket ammunition, but drop to 2-3 MOA, and occasionally even worse, when using soft-point, blunter ammunition such as the Nosler 64gr. bullet or Georgia Arms' economical 55gr. soft-point load. That's not necessarily a drawback in a short- to medium-range defensive environment: a 3"-4" group at 100 yards is still adequate for a head shot, and a 5"-6" group at 150 yards will still fit inside a human target's chest area. The FBI rounds and their law enforcement equivalents were developed primarily for use at those sorts of ranges. For that combat environment, they are sufficiently accurate. For longer ranges . . . not so much.
So, having discussed the options available, what should you choose? Let me start by saying that, if your rifle is chambered for 5.56x45mm ammunition, I strongly recommend that you buy ammunition labeled as such, rather than .223 Remington. 5.56 ammunition is loaded to higher pressures than .223, giving an extra couple of hundred feet per second velocity. (For that reason, don't shoot 5.56 ammo in a .223-chambered rifle, even though it'll usually fit and function just fine. The pressure might be too high for safety, particularly as the rifle gets hot. However, .223 ammo can be fired safely in any 5.56-chambered rifle. Plan your rifle purchases accordingly.)
Selection will largely depend on your budget. For a relatively low-cost solution, the original M193 55-grain bullet will do an adequate job. It also has the advantage for civilian use that it penetrates sheet-rock and building walls relatively poorly, so over-penetration in an urban environment is less likely to be a problem. The M855 62-grain round offers superior long-range performance, but that's something civilian shooters are unlikely to need as much as soldiers - and besides, most of us lack the training and extensive practice needed to take advantage of that accuracy. Also, M193 is more likely to stay in the body of an attacker (and not pass through walls), while M855 is much more likely to over-penetrate and cause potential hazard to people and objects beyond the target. On balance, I recommend M193 as a reasonably effective low-cost solution. (I also stock both M193 and M855 as training ammo, so as not to waste my much more expensive "social use" rounds.) If you want to go to a 55gr. load with less penetration and better terminal ballistics, there's Hornady's 55gr. TAP load, which has an excellent record "on the street"; or there's the Georgia Arms soft-point load mentioned above. Both are loaded to .223 pressures rather than 5.56mm.
(Let me take this opportunity to mention that Georgia Arms offers remanufactured 5.56mm and .223 ammunition, using once-fired cases, at very reasonable prices, perhaps the most economical solution for practice and competition use out there at present. Their "Canned Heat" bulk pack ammunition [packaged in ammo cans, and available in multiple rifle and handgun calibers and loadings] is relatively affordable. I have several hundred rounds of it in my stash as I write these words. No, they didn't ask to be mentioned and they're not compensating me in any way for recommending them - I just like my readers to know about good deals when they're available.)
If you can afford something better, there are several good choices. My round of choice for general-purpose defensive use is the Mk. 262 77-grain OTM. I don't know what my engagement range might be; my location on any given day varies from visiting a city, to driving through the Texas plains. Therefore, I want the versatility of good accuracy and terminal performance anywhere from "up close and personal" to "way out there". I use the Israeli version of the Mk. 262 (you can read a detailed review of it here). Here's a video clip showing its performance in ballistic gelatin. It's particularly interesting to me because the round was fired through a 10½" barreled rifle, the same barrel length as my AR-15 5.56mm. pistol. Despite the short barrel and consequent loss of velocity, the bullet performed very well.
This ammo is expensive, but you get what you pay for. I don't think there's a better general-purpose defensive round out there at present for the AR-15-style weapon than the Mk. 262 or its equivalents (such as, for example, Hornady's 75gr. TAP load). Stocks of the Mk. 262 from any manufacturer are usually limited, due to its expense and military demand for the round. (There are currently a few cases of the IMI version at my favorite supplier.). However, function-test it carefully before adopting it. It's slightly longer than some other 5.56mm rounds, so some magazines and weapons may not load or feed it reliably. Testing is critical before you trust your life to any firearm or round!
For short-barreled AR-15 carbines or pistols in an urban environment, many people prefer 62- and 64-grain soft-point rounds like those used by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. For use in confined quarters, such as home defense or on city streets, you want as little risk of over-penetration as possible, so those rounds are a decent choice. Another good one is a so-called "plastic tipped" round, like those in Hornady's TAP range. They feed very reliably and, particularly in lighter bullet weights, expand explosively in flesh and are very unlikely to over-penetrate. That's why I carry 55gr. TAP in my home defense AR-15.
There's another option that's been well reviewed by people who know what they're talking about. Barnes Bullets have developed a line of solid copper projectiles, containing no lead. They expand aggressively in flesh, but also offer "barrier blind" performance and deep penetration. Barnes loads them in its own VOR-TX brand of ammunition, and Cor-Bon uses them in its DPX line; some other manufacturers also offer them. John Farnam (whom we've met in these pages before) speaks very highly of the DPX load (I quoted him on the subject back in 2013, when I bought a case of it). It's hard to find these bullets, and ammo using them, in local stores, so you may have to look around online and move quickly when you find some. They're usually quite expensive, but I think they'll serve you very well for short- to medium-range defensive purposes. I carried DPX in my rifles when I lived in a large city (Nashville, TN), and would still gladly do so in an urban environment. However, now that I live in plains country, where longer-range shots may be required, I've switched to Mk. 262 with its better ballistic properties for that purpose. (If anyone wants to buy a few hundred rounds of DPX 62gr., drop me a line. My e-mail address is in my blog profile.)
There are several hunting rounds that will do double duty as defensive rounds. To cite just a few examples, Federal's 62-grain Fusion round or either of Winchester's 64-grain deer hunting rounds are likely to do just as well against two-legged targets as four-legged ones. (You'll have noticed that their bullet weights and types correspond very closely to the respective companies' FBI loads, discussed above - indeed, for all we know they may use the same bullets.) I'd consider myself adequately equipped if they (or equivalents from other ammunition manufacturers) were all I had. You don't have to buy specifically military or law enforcement rounds to be well defended. Just put enough of them through your defensive rifle or carbine to be sure they'll feed and function without any problems before you rely on them. This can be costly, particularly during the current ammo shortage, but don't skimp on the testing. The last thing you want in a real-world defensive encounter is to find out the hard way that you didn't test thoroughly enough, and your rifle is now out of action!
One final word of warning. I know a lot of shooters who have plenty of ammunition, and good-quality magazines, and high-quality rifles and carbines in which to use them: but they don't keep them "ready to go" in case of emergency. I think this is a potentially fatal flaw in their thinking. If you're willing to keep a loaded handgun on standby in case of emergency, why not do the same thing with your rifle? Obviously, you'll not want to have loaded guns accessible to or by unsupervised children: but if you can keep them locked away from over-curious young hands and minds, don't ignore the readiness factor.
I keep a few loaded magazines securely stashed in close proximity to my (equally securely stored) defensive long guns. During periods of increased vulnerability (e.g. while we're asleep at night), a rifle will be near to hand, magazine inserted, ready to chamber a round and go. In more risky situations (such as living in a high crime area where home-invasion-style robberies are not infrequent), I'd probably keep a long gun loaded and ready at all times. A rifle has a lot more "stopping power" than an average handgun, and I want the odds on my side in a fight, thank you very much!
Remember the church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas a few years ago? The citizen who took on the murderer and stopped further bloodshed used his AR-15 rifle to do so - but he had to take the time to load a magazine first, before he could intervene. I stand second to no-one in my appreciation of his courage and his willingness to stand up against evil: but how many more lives might have been saved if he'd had a loaded magazine ready to use, and thus been able to respond more quickly? We should learn from that. A defensive rifle - or any defensive weapon - that isn't ready to defend you when the need arises, is not "defensive" at all. It's a contradiction in terms.
* * * * *
In closing, I'd like to mention something I should have said earlier in this series of articles. The 5.56/.223 round, like all modern rifle rounds, is very loud when fired. If you do so without hearing protection, particularly inside a building, hearing damage is almost guaranteed. After years of exposure to close-quarters gunfire, my hearing has deteriorated considerably. Many veterans of military service will say the same thing.
It's worth keeping a set of electronic ear muffs with your defensive firearm, and putting them on (it takes only a second or two) before using it to check on "things that go bump in the night". If you have to shoot, your ears will thank you - and the electronic amplification of sounds will help you track any intruder by the noise he makes (footfalls, voices, etc.). I've used muffs from Caldwell, Howard Leight, Peltor and Walker with good results. They're not very expensive - certainly a lot cheaper than hearing aids later in life! Just make sure you get a set of slimline muffs that won't interfere with your cheek weld against your rifle stock. Thick, heavy muffs may get in the way of that.
A useful adjunct to ear muffs - and something that may minimize damage to your hearing without them - is to use a blast redirection device that throws the muzzle blast forward, instead of letting it spread sideways and rearwards as well. Such devices don't reduce the sound, but minimize its battering impact on your eardrum. (This is particularly useful if you're standing next to a wall when you fire. The bounce-back of muzzle blast from the wall can feel like a physical slap in the face. These devices eliminate that almost completely.)
Two such devices that I've used personally, and can therefore recommend from my own experience, are Midwest Industries' Blast Can and (very recently) Kineti-Tech's muzzle brakes with concussion/redirector sleeves. The latter are more expensive, but offer a double benefit; without the sleeve, the muzzle brake helps minimize recoil and muzzle flip, while with the sleeve fitted, the former benefit is reduced but the sound is redirected. You can use them either way. There are other versions of these devices, of course, which you'll find by shopping around.
* * * * *
Well, there we are. I hope you've enjoyed this series of three articles on the personal defense rifle, and have found something useful in them. If you have anything to suggest, please do so in Comments.
A relatively common question was why one needs a defensive rifle at all. Respondents noted that they had a shotgun, or a handgun, and were good with it, so why bother with anything more? To that I can only say, if you're happy with what you've got, and you think it's adequate for your needs, that's great. However, there are several factors favoring a defensive rifle or carbine.
An AR-15-style weapon typically uses 20- or 30-round magazines. That's a lot more ammunition than the average shotgun or handgun can hold! (If you're in a state that legally neuters standard magazine capacities, that may mitigate against a defensive rifle, but there are other factors.)
A rifle typically hits much harder than a handgun, and has greater effective range than a shotgun. Both are real advantages that are worth having on your side.
Many people find the recoil of a shotgun difficult to handle. An AR-15 or similar weapon has minimal recoil, making it much easier to control. If other family members (particularly smaller and/or younger ones) may need to use your defensive weapons, that's a big advantage.
Consider your personal circumstances and condition, and choose your defensive weapon(s) with them in mind. Take me: I'm in my sixties, I've had two heart attacks, and I'm permanently partially disabled as the result of a workplace injury. I'm not going anywhere fast, and I'm not going far under my own steam - pain would immobilize me before long. My injuries make it difficult for me to use a hard-recoiling weapon like a shotgun. Therefore, I want the most effective defensive weapon I can handle, to keep potential enemies as far away from me as possible. I don't want to have to wait until they're "up close and personal" before starting to deal with the problem, because the closer they are to me, the more likely they are to hurt or kill me before I can do anything about them. This is a factor even if you first see them at very close range (e.g. they kick down the door of your house). Even if they're only ten feet from me, I want them to stay that far away, and get no closer. A rifle delivers enough power to help make sure they do that. So does a shotgun, if you can manage its recoil. A handgun . . . not necessarily.
Remember that an attacker may be completely out of control, under the influence of drugs or other substances. He won't be listening to reason, he won't be afraid of a gun, and he probably won't feel much pain. He'll just keep coming. If I have to use a gun to stop him, I want to have enough ammunition available to keep hitting him until he stops. A rifle offers that. (Even a MMA fighter may find it tough to stop a hopped-up assailant; see here for one such account, and watch the video. It's eye-opening. In my condition, I'd never be able to fight off an attacker like that - but with a good defensive firearm, my chances are a lot better.)
Some readers said that they prefer different firearms. Frankly, I have no bias either way. Use whatever you like, and make the most of it. I own several lever-action firearms, the same type widely used in the Old West, chambered for three different cartridges (.30-30, .44 Magnum and .45-70). If push came to shove, I have no doubt I could make good use of any of them as a defensive weapon. I could do the same with my .22 Magnum pump-action rifle, or my .308 Winchester bolt-action hunting rifle, or a shotgun. Even so, the advantages of the AR-15 platform are:
It's very ergonomic and easy to handle;
It's simple to understand (and repair, if necessary);
It has a useful magazine capacity;
It has minimal recoil (in its original 5.56mm chambering) and is very controllable in rapid fire, but delivers a powerful punch with the right ammunition;
It can be upgraded and customized to whatever extent you wish;
It's ubiquitous - there are literally millions of them in private and public hands across America.
More than any other rifle, people are likely to know something about the AR-15, particularly anyone who's served in the US armed forces over the past fifty years or so. Furthermore, you can get ammunition for it almost everywhere, whereas other, less popular cartridges may be in short supply. That's why it's generally regarded as the (currently) quintessential American defensive rifle.
In my first article, I observed:
You have to get to know [the AR-15] and its parts, learning which may break and require replacement, and which are more robust and reliable. In the military, you can rely on a unit armorer, but in the civilian world you have to rely on a gunsmith who may be a long way from you. Furthermore, if trouble arises, you may not have time to get to him. You should be able to detail-strip your piece, and keep a stock of basic spares on hand with which to repair any breakages. This is basic stuff.
Some readers wanted to know which spare parts they should keep on hand in case of need, and what level of knowledge they would need to replace them. There's good news here: the AR-15 is a remarkably easy rifle to understand. You can literally assemble one at home, from scratch, from bare upper and lower receivers to a fully operational rifle, in an hour or so, given a few tools, the necessary components, and some instruction. There are plenty of videos about it on YouTube. Here are three of them, provided by vendor Midway USA (to whom our thanks for their excellent troubleshooting video guides), showing assembly from start to finish.
What spare parts should you keep on hand? Broken parts are not common on modern rifles, because they're made to pretty high standards: but defective parts can creep in, and mechanical failure is a fact of life with any machine. Basically, be prepared to replace the parts that are most prone to breakage or loss. For example, if the firing pin breaks, you want a spare on hand. No firing pin = no functioning weapon! Rather than mess around trying to disassemble the bolt to get at the firing pin, I keep an entire spare bolt carrier group (BCG) on hand, so that if the one in the rifle stops functioning for any reason, I can simply replace it, then identify and fix the problem with the original unit at my leisure. It takes less than half a minute to swap them. (However, do make sure to test-fire your backup BCG in your rifle before you trust it to fit and function! I suggest putting at least a hundred trouble-free rounds through it.) I also keep a supply of the more important springs, pins and detents on hand. Several vendors offer field repair kits (like this one, for example). That, plus the tools necessary to install the parts, should be part of your range kit. (Also, don't forget spare batteries for accessories such as a red dot sight, weapon light, etc. Some pistol grips or stocks offer storage compartments to hold them securely; otherwise, keep them somewhere safe, but handy.)
Several people raised serious concerns about the cost of training, both instruction and ammunition. Project Appleseed, which I strongly recommend for introductory training, isn't very expensive, and .22LR ammunition is still available at under 10c per round if you buy it by the case (although until recently some brands used to be 3-4c per round . . . yes, yes, I know, I don't like it either!) If a case is more than you need right now, I'd still buy it, because regular practice will eat it up within a year or two. If it's just too expensive, try asking your friends if they want to share the cost (and the case) with you. (You can even use your AR-15 to shoot .22LR ammunition - I'll discuss that further below.) There's also the NRA Basic Rifle Shooting course if you can't get to Appleseed, although the NRA course isn't nearly as much fun.
As for more advanced training at major shooting schools: yes, that's expensive, what with course fees, travel, hotel accommodation, etc (not to mention the much higher cost of ammunition during the current ammo drought). If you can't afford to attend such a course, look for instructors who travel to your part of the world to offer training. That's often a lot cheaper, and you don't have to pay for hotels, etc. There are many such teachers and schools out there; do a Web search and ask local sources for recommendations. It's not a bad idea to join a couple of firearms forums like AR15.com (particularly its training forum) or The Firing Line. There are many others, but those two are good. Read users' posts about training courses and instructors, and ask questions. You'll learn a lot.
You can also buy DVD's of training courses from the top shooting schools and instructors. Short of going there, this is a great way to glean knowledge from them. Try Gunsite, Thunder Ranch, and instructors like Pat Rogers, Paul Howe and many others. Those I've named, both schools and individuals, are top-notch, and I recommend them unreservedly, but they're by no means the only ones out there. (As I write these words, Gunsite is selling its DVD of the 223 Carbine course for only $10. This is an absolute steal! It's an excellent entry-level introduction to defensive carbine handling for those who aren't familiar with it. I highly recommend it.)
As for long-term ongoing practice to keep your skills sharp, there are a couple of low-cost ways of doing it that are also a lot of fun. To start, get a BB or Airsoft rifle (you'll recall I recommended such weapons for handgun training, too, some years ago). Set up a practice course of fire in your back yard, or on any convenient stretch of open ground where it's legal and safe to do so. As a backstop, stack up home-made sandbags or garden center packs of potting soil. For targets, pick anything small and difficult to hit - wine bottle corks, screw-on caps from bottled water, milk bottle caps, and so on. Fasten them to the backstop with pins or glue, or scatter them on the ground in front of it. From short range (start at 5 yards) practice bringing your BB/Airsoft rifle to your shoulder, drawing a bead on a target and hitting it, then swinging rapidly to the next target, and so on. (You can get a low-cost AR-15-style BB rifle to make practice more realistic. There's even a full-auto version available!) Move back to longer ranges as you get the hang of it. It's surprisingly challenging, particularly because BB/Airsoft projectiles are easily blown around by the wind, making marksmanship more demanding. As you improve, try having someone toss moving targets (e.g. tennis balls, ping-pong balls, etc.) in front of the backstop - see my earlier article for details.
There's also the sport of minisniping with airguns, which is very tricky. It'll teach you precision marksmanship like nothing else. The late Peter Capstick wrote an excellent article describing it, which I highly recommend you read. (I knew him in South Africa, and he could wax eloquent on the subject.) Get together with some friends and set up your own minisniping course of fire. You'll have a lot of fun together. If you get bored with airguns, try using .22LR rifles at longer ranges (out to 50-100 yards), using larger targets (like the above-mentioned wine bottle corks or ping-pong balls). While an expensive precision air rifle is doubtless nice to have, I certainly can't afford one! Cheaper models from manufacturers such as Beeman, Crosman and Gamo can be used to get into the sport, then you can upgrade as and when you can afford to. If the cheaper air rifles aren't accurate enough to reliably hit tiny targets, use larger ones, as mentioned above. A low cost sport, yet tricky as all get-out - what's not to like?
Two readers asked, in so many words, "How much and how often do I need to shoot to keep up my skills, once I have them?" Well, you can use lower-cost weapons and ammunition to develop and maintain general shooting skills, but your rifle is - or should be - your primary defensive weapon. As such, it requires sufficient time and attention to render you capable of using it on demand, to good effect. "Dry fire" can substitute for some of that, if you practice it regularly; but even with that, I believe you'll need to shoot at least 500 rounds per year from your primary defensive rifle to keep your skills sharp. Double that or more would be better. That amount of shooting keeps you accustomed to weapon handling, manipulating the controls, rapid changing of magazines, selecting and hitting targets in rapid succession, trigger and breathing control for longer-range accuracy, and so on. I'd try to practice at least once per quarter: monthly, if possible. I don't think you can get away with less than that to maintain your skills. Yes, that's an expensive proposition; but that's also realistic.
There are other conversion kits out there, but I'm familiar with the CMMG product, so that's the one I can recommend from personal experience. It may take you a year or so to pay for it in ammunition cost savings, but after that it's all gravy. This is a very worthwhile accessory, IMHO. With it, you can reduce your full-power (and full-cost) 5.56mm ammo expenditure to one or two magazines per training session, plus many more (much cheaper) .22 rounds through the conversion kit. Since you're still shooting your actual defensive rifle, all that practice and training will be a direct investment in your own security, even using a lower-powered round.
I guess that's answered most of the questions I received. Tomorrow I'll address how to select ammunition for your defensive rifle, and what to consider in the process.
