RECCE ROOM

For three weeks, I have been watching football games from the Alliance of American Football, the AAF. The games and league have been very entertaining, for a number of reasons.  Rules The AAF has some interesting rules - no point after touchdowns, no kickoffs, only five can rush the passer, and others. This makes for less predictable scores and more balanced teams.  Of course, each team wants to have as good an offense and defense as possible, but this format makes it prohibitive to be a specialist team.  Personnel Some players have NFL experience. Some coaches do, too.  Some don't. However, it is clear that the players and coaches are a notch above a good college program.  Add to it a less likelihood of game fixing, and the product has been more fun to watch.  Side Dishes Or rather, the lack thereof.  There haven't been players "taking a knee." The commercials are short and infrequent.  The refs have been equally fair / unfair.  Summ...

Chest rigs, plate carriers, battle belts, and such come in an endless variety of options.  Which one is best? That's a difficult question to answer. Most agree that there are always trade offs, and the individual rifleman should evaluate the pros and cons to make a mission-specific decision. As a rule of thumb, the rig or belt should generally be for A) things that make holes, and B) things that fix holes. In other words, just use the rig for mags, pistol, knives, and IFAK materials.  One admissible exception is comms gear. Chest Rig There are many sizes and shapes of chest rigs.  However, for the purposes of this article, they shall be defined as a rig worn on or about the chest area. Most can carry 6+ magazines.  Many can hold plates. Some cannot hold plates, so an additional plate carrier should be considered.  Pistols should be worn on the belt if possible, and not on the chest rig.  Pros - Generally more space for stuff. Generall...

Recently, Benchmade knives made a big mistake. They took the wrong side of the debate on the 2nd Amendment.  Partnering with a police department on the destruction of firearms seized or "bought back," they planned on turning the steel into their knives. There was immediate and decisive backlash from the 2A community. During the maelstrom, it was discovered that Benchmade donated 91% to Democrats. PS - how can any police department "buy back" a gun? They would have had to have bought the gun in the first place. Therefore, the mere mention of "buyback" infers that the guns belonged to the government in the first place.  This is the sort of stuff that leads headlong into revolution. 

This is not a repo story, but it does come from my car rental days. I was the manager of a location and was teaching some new employees proper protocols. According to the official employee manual of this company, if a misunderstanding were to arise, the proper protocol would be to apologize. Particularly, if the fault resided with the company, an employee of the company, or if fault was not immediately clear. Specifically, the manual advised that the employee should say "I'm sorry." One of the trainees objected. She explained that her father had taught her to never say "I'm sorry." His rationale came from definition number 3 below - t o be in a pitiful state of affairs. I showed her a dictionary, with the following  definitions:   Sorry - adjective 1. Feeling distress, especially through sympathy with someone else's misfortune. "I was sorry to hear about what happened to your family" 2. Feeling regret or penitence. "he said he w...

Hillary Clinton tweeted: The real national emergencies: - Relentless gun violence. - Children separated from their families at the border. - Climate change. - Americans dying for lack of health care. Let's tackle these, shall we? - Relentless gun violence. America has one of the lowest rates in the industrialized world.  This is #FakeFact - Children separated from their families at the border. These children are being separated from their families way before they get to the border.  The fact is, a Wall will reduce child sex trafficking. Dems don't wanna do that.  - Climate change. It's not man made, so what's the point? - Americans dying for lack of health care. Where? This is also a #FakeFact Also funny how she fails to mention a real emergency - Bill is #StillDickingBimbos 

My everyday carry (EDC), the   Sig P320  just set a new reliability standard.  From the article: Reliability - SIG Sauer’s  M18, the compact variant of the U.S. Army’s M17 duty sidearm, successfully completed a recent Lot Acceptance Test in which 12,000 rounds—more than double the historical highwater mark of 5,000—were run through three different guns with zero stoppages. The required Material Reliability Testing deems up to 12 stoppages within its acceptable limits. Accuracy - The pistols also passed the accuracy and dispersion requirements, as well as parts interchangeability mandates.  Anecdote - My P320 has a better trigger pull, has better sights, and is more accurate than my GLOCK 19. Both are fine pistols.  The Sig is just better all around.  Summary - The GLOCK 19 is a fine pistol and it would never be a mistake to buy one.  The Sig P320 is just a step better.  Better trigger, better sights, more accur...

As Mount Juliet city commissioners consider tripling the property tax , there have been interesting developments.  Surprisingly, my commissioner, Vice Mayor James Maness, has thrown his support to increasing the tax.  In a public conversation on social media, when I suggested no tax increase be accepted, Maness asked what I would propose instead. He also cited that city budgets are open records to the public. In another conversation, commissioner Ray Justice also threw his favor toward the increase of property tax.  "The budget is available online and I invite you to look at it then provide options." He also said about keeping the same tax level: "Not without sacrificing services. I’m not playing with people’s lives in an effort to save pennies." Maness has been conservative in most every other aspect.  Perhaps he has been in office too long, or perhaps he is not as strong a conservative as I had thought.  Perhaps he lost his way.  Ray Justice lost his ...