Articles by Herschel Smith

The Trace:

I published a story on Monday that has generated some of the strongest pushback — indeed, ridicule — of anything I have reported for The Trace.

My piece examined how gun manufacturing trends influence the criminal market and what changes in the types of guns being produced might mean for public safety. Gun companies are producing a greater number of semiautomatic handguns of the sort used as police sidearms and military service weapons — those that shoot 9mm, .40, and .45-caliber bullets — than in decades past. They are selling them to civilians who increasingly buy firearms for the primary purpose of defending themselves from other people, and believe that more powerful guns will make them more safe.

The increasing prevalence of powerful guns also means that criminals encounter them, and acquire them, more often. I also found in my reporting evidence that illegal buyers prefer high-caliber guns for the same reasons as legal buyers.

Law enforcement officers are recovering more of these weapons at crime scenes, and fewer of the kinds of cheap, small guns that criminals favored during the crime waves of the late 20th century.

The story was based on publicly available data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which shows a sharp uptick in the number of high-caliber guns recovered by police in a short time period, just four years. The data makes clear that in the underground criminal market, the supply of semiautomatic handguns chambered to shoot 9mm, .40, and .45-caliber bullets is increasing faster than the supply of smaller calibers, like the .22.

Forensic evidence shows that larger bullets tear larger holes in human bodies, and thus are more likely to severely damage a vital organ or rupture an artery. Public health research indicates that an increasing number of people who get shot are dying from their wounds.

In an editorial on firearm news site Guns.com, Greg Camp said my article was “confusing.” Robert Farago of The Truth About Guns dismissed the piece as well. On his popular gun blog Bearing Arms, Bob Owens called the story “the second dumbest thing you’ll read about guns all day.” I’m not sure who crowded me out of the top spot.

Owens and others criticized my understanding of caliber and the gun industry’s last century and change of history. As they pointed out, the kinds of weapons at the center of my story have been around for more than a century. That’s true: the 9mm round was first designed in 1901, and the .45-caliber in 1904. My critics also argued that these rounds are far from the largest calibers available today. That’s also true: The weapons I wrote about don’t approach the power of the .50-caliber bullet shot by the Desert Eagle pistol so often favored by action movie villains.

As they made their criticisms, these gun writers did not engage with the point of my story. I never claimed that the calibers I wrote about were only recently invented, nor that they were the biggest rounds in history.

Rather, I pointed about that the production of more powerful handguns has surged, while production of others — revolvers and semiautomatic calibers considered too small for police sidearms, like .22, .25, and .32 — has grown comparatively slowly, or even withered away. The guns that make up an ever-greater share of the American arsenal often shoot larger, faster rounds than those weapons that are losing ground, and the handguns now most prevalent nearly universally accommodate higher capacity magazines.

I was ridiculed for noting these differences, cast as an ignorant fear-monger and outsider who lacked standing to comment on the gun world.

Ignored, in these critiques, are the public safety implications of a larger supply of more powerful guns flowing from the legal to the illegal market.

It seemed that they didn’t so much contest the conclusions I reached so much as they took offense that I would pose these questions about the relationship between the gun supply and crime in the first place.

I object that Alex didn’t interact with my assessment of their work.  You can go assess the data for yourself.  Alex is misrepresenting the data and isn’t quite at the point of truly understanding what he’s looking at because he isn’t a gunner.  To repeat myself from the first analysis of this issue, he isn’t educated on his subject.  Let’s take a closer look.

The data is only available on this site for the years 2012 – 2015.  From a technical perspective (and given that I’m a PE, I’m qualified to make judgments concerning mathematics and statistics), I deny that this is enough data to develop a trend line with a reasonable correlation coefficient.  In other words, the data isn’t statistically significant.  Much more is needed before Alex can reach any conclusions like he did.

But to engage the data as if it’s meaningful, let’s outline what we know.  In 2015, the following recoveries were made: 55,691 (9mm), 28717 (.40), 20,729 (.45 ACP), 9,417 (.357 magnum), and 35,382 (.22LR).  This list isn’t complete.

In 2012, the following recoveries were made: 42,560 (9mm), 20,674 (.40), 17,280 (.45 ACP), 9,979 (.357 magnum), and 42,560 (.22LR).

This data doesn’t show what Alex wants it to show.  First of all, it shows that more recoveries occurred (due to whatever reason, increased police work, presumably).  It shows that approximately the same number of .22LR recoveries occurred in both years, while recoveries in 9mm and .40 went up in 2015 (although not significantly).  But it also shows that recoveries in .45 ACP stayed about the same.  It also shows that recoveries in .357 magnum decreased.  No one would argue that the .357 magnum is a weak round.  It has about the same bullet diameter as the 9mm but with approximately 400 FPS greater muzzle velocity than the 9mm.  It packs a punch, enough to shatter windshields and keep moving, which is why LEOs transitioned to this round from the .38 Special.

But buyers are rejecting this round in favor of the much weaker 9mm (a judgment I reject given my love for the .357 magnum round).  The higher ratio of 9mm to .22LR recovered in 2015 versus 2012 is analogous to the higher ratio of 9mm to .45 ACP in both years, meaning that buyers favor the weaker 9mm over the much stronger .45 ACP.

It’s what I told you in my earlier analysis without looking at the data.  That’s how sure I was of my judgment – I didn’t even look at the data to write my analysis.  And I was right.  No one has ever preferentially selected the .22LR for self defense (although I’ve argued that the .22 magnum is a feasible self defense round even if not superior).  Shooters may use it (including criminals) if it happens to be around.

But buyers are preferentially selecting medium calibers (9mm, .38 ACP) over larger rounds and rounds with higher muzzle velocity like the .357 magnum.  Buyers simply are not purchasing higher caliber weapons (.40, .45 ACP, .44 magnum) or weapons with higher muzzle velocity (e.g., .357 magnum) in the same quantity as the 9mm.  Instead, the 9mm is the ubiquitous round in America today.  That’s why, during the ammunition shortage a few years ago, I could always buy .45 ACP, and when I looked for 9mm just to see what the other guys are doing, I could never find any.

Ironically, it isn’t the guns that have changed.  Yes, technology has developed to some degree, but the real development has occurred in ammunition.  So for example, the development of high performing personal defense ammunition has made buyers more confident in purchasing the 9mm (e.g., open tip bullets where the jacket is chemically bonded to the lead core, ensuring symmetrical expansion of the bullet).

Alex is wrong in his analysis.  Just wrong.  He’s trafficking in fake news.  He has misread the data, and he is seeing what he wants to see.  We firearms experts are always around to help him out before he writes the next gun piece, but remember, Google considers folks like me to be “fake news.”  So Alex better be careful associating with folks like us.  He may lose his reputation.

There continue to be developments in #Pizzagate, albeit slowly and methodical.

The researchers at Voat/v/Pizzagate have linked a number of very disturbing “art” URLs associated with James Alefantis and his collaborators.  Not for the weak of stomach.

The researchers also send you to this article on The Suiciding of Pedophile Investigators.  Read it all – every word of it.  There is one minor thing with which I disagree concerning the analysis (not the data or facts), but if even half of what is contained in this article is true, we have a very serious, very deeply embedded, world-wide problem that will take a very long time to root out.  It will never really be completely rooted out without a revival of Biblical values, but the guilty should be held accountable.  We can all agree with that.

Read McClatchy on a war of toddandclare.com (a “dating web site”) against Julian Assange.  You heard that right.  A dating web site.  So ask yourself how many dating web sites operate in the darkness, go on an expedition of total war against the Wikileaks founder, and have the time and money to do that?  That’s right.  It’s more than a dating web site.  It oozes the fingerprints of someone much more well funded than a dating web site.  The “Todd and Clare team” aren’t really Todd and Clare.  Or at least, that’s what I surmise from all of this.

CBS calls #Pizzagate false.  No name, no byline.  They have the cowardice to call #Pizzagate investigators liars, but not the courage to sign a name to the article.  What a bunch of juveniles.

Will Rahn writes at CBS News, ” … we can present readers and viewers with endless reasons for why it’s absurd to think that a Podesta email about ordering pizzas is somehow about prostitution, but some people simply won’t believe it because we’re the ones saying it. ”

All of the articles so far that have allegedly “debunked” #Pizzagate have done no such thing.  Not a single fact has been presented in any of them, not a single fact found by the researchers has been engaged.  They just say it’s debunked, and so the ignorant masses are supposed to believe that it’s been debunked.

So he’s said a mouthful there.  “Endless reasons,” he asserts.  Endless.  So here’s your chance, Will.  Let’s hear it.  Let’s hear the endless reasons that it’s absurd.  We’re listening.  Hell, give us one or two to chew on, and then we’ll give you time to give us this endless stream of reasons you said you have.  By the way, Will doesn’t give us his email address so we can reach him.  Remember what I said about writers who don’t give their contact information?

For my part, I’ve noticed a significant uptick on the number of CTR shills and trolls on this web site.  I’ve had to ban a few of them within recent weeks, perhaps half a dozen.  They don’t concern me as much as they tell a story.  CTR sure is spending a lot of money on “fake news.”  David Seaman asks the appropriate questions here.

Prior:

Pizzagate X

Pizzagate IX

Pizzagate VIII

Pizzagate VII

Pizzagate VI

Pizzagate V: Pizzagate In Theological Perspective

Pizzagate IV

Pizzagate III

Pizzagate II

Pizzagate

PIX11:

LOS ANGELES — A breast-cancer patient said she felt violated and humiliated in a public TSA search at Los Angeles International Airport Sunday after two security agents put her through what she called an aggressive pat down.

Denise Albert, a frequent guest on the PIX11 Morning News and co-host of “The Moms,” was traveling through LAX security when two TSA agents pulled her aside for a manual search because she was trying to bring a necessary medical cream with her on her flight, Albert said.

“I always let them know I have a medical port and that I am wearing a wig,” says Albert.

Albert said she has brought the cream on previous flights and has shown it to TSA agents before without issue. This time, she was told if she wanted to carry the cream, she would need to undergo a full pat-down with pressure.

She posted a video to her Facebook page of the two TSA agents “aggressively attempt[ing] to do a body cavity search in public” after making Albert remove her shoes and explaining that they needed to conduct a full body search using “as much pressure” as they needed to.

Albert said she told the agents she could not remove her shoes since she was not wearing socks and had an infection on her feet, a side effect of her treatment and chemotherapy. So they let her sit down and remove her shoes.

“After at least 20 minutes of sitting there because they were debating how to proceed, I told them my feet were freezing,” Albert’s post reads. “Also a side effect from chemo. They refused to help me.”

Then, after a female TSA agent “forceabl[y] and aggressively” put her hands down the back of Albert’s jeans, the agents explained they would have to “apply pressure from head to toe” which presented another set of problems for Albert. She wears a wig and did not want them to remove it, and has a lumpectomy medical port in her chest, which she did not want agents to touch.

“I started crying,” said Albert. “It was overwhelming and horrific. I could not believe what was happening.”

After the female agent conducted a search and a supervisor arrived, Albert said her bags were emptied and she was made to feel humiliated once again after another agent joked about the fake eyelashes in one of Albert’s bags.

“I told her, it’s because I don’t have real ones from my cancer treatment,” Albert’s post reads.

Without going into too much detail, once while flying my wife was subject to similar humiliation.  This woman obviously doesn’t understand the TSA or their purpose.

The TSA is filled with hicks and goobers whose job it is to (a) act out security theater, and (b) perform intrusive acts of others.  They must do this for two reasons.

First, they must try to convince the ignorant masses that something good is happening and that the public is being protected.  Of course, that’s all a lie.

The second reason is that this numbs and desensitizes the public to intrusive behavior of the federal government and makes them accustomed to government knowledge and approval of all aspects of our lives.

I’m sorry this happened to the woman, but she isn’t the first, and she won’t be the last until we rid ourselves of this ridiculous gaggle of miscreants and misfits.

Prior: TSA Category

Matt Vespa:

Sen. Barbara Favola says she doesn’t want to take away your guns. She just wants to know what you’re packing.

The Arlington Democrat is proposing to have the state study whether the registration of firearms in Virginia is feasible, because she believes arming police with a database of gun records would provide them with an additional tool to fight crime. But she knows even a study will draw opposition in Richmond.

[…]

“My guess is that there will not be a single Republican who will vote for this bill,” says Sen Richard Black (R-Loudoun). “The whole purpose of [the study] is to pave the way for the confiscation of firearms from law abiding citizens,” he adds.

[…]

Black says he doesn’t see the point of a registry, because only law-abiding gun owners would comply.

“Killers do not line up to register their firearms,” Black points out.

“Favola said she would become more aggressive on this front should this study show some public safety benefits.”  So let me see.  She wants a gun registry.  Let me think about it.  Okay, here’s my answer.

NO!

Your move.  And as for that part about becoming more aggressive, you go ahead and give that a try, little missy.

How Guns Are Getting Bigger – And Possibly More Deadly.

Not only are guns getting bigger, they’re getting into the hands of more criminals, according to a recent investigation by The Trace, with deadly effect.

While all bullets could kill if they hit vital organs, arteries, or the head, experts told The Trace that the bigger the bullet, the more likely any wound will be fatal. Bullets are measured in calibers, or the diameter of their width, in fractions of an inch or millimeter.

In the past 20 years, higher demand from law-abiding citizens and criminals, both claiming concern about self-protection, has led gun manufacturers to make more of these deadlier guns. Legal and illegal citizen buyers alike are scooping up higher-caliber pistols like those originally designed for police from the civilian market and illegal gun runners. As a result, guns with higher caliber bullets are showing up at more crime scenes, leading experts to expect the lethality rate of gun violence to rise, too.

“Demand is shifting because supply is shifting,” SUNY-Albany sociologist David Hureau told The Trace. “Bigger, badder guns are just more available on the secondary market.”

This is a stark change from just 50 years ago, when the criminal’s gun of choice–dubbed the “Saturday Night Special”–was smaller and cheaper. Since then, gun companies have marketed bigger, higher-caliber weapons like 9mm, .40, and .45 caliber pistols as adequate for keeping average citizens concerned about self-defense—”citizen protectors,” as one sociologist called them—safe.

I sent this to myself today with that subject line (“The dumbest gun headline of the day).  I see that Bob Owens has already posted on this, and I basically concur with his sentiments.  The article is nonsense, and the writers obviously don’t know anything about their subject.

The .45 ACP has been around and in use by both military and civilians for more than a century, and the large revolver cartridges have been around for an even longer time than that.  In fact, the .38 Special is approximately the same diameter as the 9mm, or in other words, the “Saturday Night Special” to which the author refers is about the same as the 9mm that she calls a “bigger, higher caliber” round.

Actually, I see the opposite happening because I actually know something about guns.  I use .45 ACP and always will, but the most popular cartridge in America is the 9mm and I see people leaving the larger calibers for the smaller ones (e.g., 9mm, .380 ACP, etc.).

But I’ll observe something about this article that Bob missed.  It was “written” by someone named Carla Javier with Fusion.  Within an hour, another writer with Fusion wrote an article that could be mistaken for the one you just read, by someone named Alex Yablon, entitled America’s Obsession With Powerful Handguns Is Giving Criminals Deadlier Tools.

Some editor at Fusion, if they have such a thing there, made the decision to publish virtually the same article under different bylines within one hour of each other.  In and of itself that is only moderately interesting and goes to show their utter disdain for Americans whom they think they can beat into submission with words.  But here’s the really interesting thing.

Guess how I found these two articles?  That’s right, by a Google News search on the word “guns.”  Think about that for a moment.  These articles are quite literally fake news.  There is nothing in them but propaganda, and any pseudo-educated gun owner can debunk the data in there, and if a Google employee cared to convert inches to millimeters, s/he could easily have called bullshit on the two articles.

But no, these are seen by Google news feed as newsworthy.  Here’s the kicker.  The Captain’s Journal, which provides vastly superior analysis to anything Fusion could ever hope to put out, cannot get on the Google News feed.  Bob Owens is on the Google News feed (for which I don’t begrudge him), and Bob didn’t say anything different than I did.  But I connected the dots to propagandizing by Fusion.

You didn’t read that anywhere else but TCJ.  But remember boys and girls, Google thinks I’m not news worthy.  Perhaps Google is trafficking in fake news, yes?

So look what the boys and girls at Voat have dug up!  Caution: NSFW.  Why, it’s John Podesta’s favorite spirit cooking girlfriend involved in some sort of occult gala with much of Hollywood with her.  Joseph sent this to me.  “Totally normal,” he says with sarcasm.  At least, I’m told that there are a lot of Hollywood types there.  I really couldn’t name a single one of them.

I’ll share with you what my oldest son Joshua said about this.

“The opulence and garishness of pornographic violence is especially off-putting.  That they have the time and means to be depraved is not unusual, it’s the celebration and worship of the depravity that strikes me.

This is a display of the most disgusting aspects of human society.  It both debases the human vessel and also the voyeur / participant by association.  Quite frankly, it makes brutes in the jungle seem tame.”

But of course the MSM and Google think this is all fake news.  I suppose the pictures are all made up.  And speaking of Google, I did a Google search of “Pizzagate” last night and none of my posts are anywhere to be found on the first twenty pages of results.  Now I know for a fact that some of my single posts, and certainly my category, have gotten more traffic than many of those URLs.

But Google dismisses my work because … it’s fake, I guess.  I made it all up.  I created the code language, I photo shopped all the pictures, I fabricated the whole story.  Wikileaks is a figment of our collective imaginations, and John Podesta has denied all of this.

Of course, there is another possibility.  Google = Coverup.

Handgun optics have become popular, and I admit that they look promising for those who cannot see as well as they once could, and I also like the fact that it eliminates the needs for front and rear sight alignment.

American Rifleman has an article up on this, embedding an instructive video.

So the obvious downside of all of this is that installation of an optic on your pistol requires either purchase of an optic-ready pistol (relegating your non optic-ready pistols to the gun safe if you like optics), or cutting the slide to install the optic (which can be expensive, and is certainly irreversible).  Unless, of course, you have an installation kit for your specific firearm.

David Codrea:

The first “warning sign” is perhaps the most implausible – openly reading a gun magazine in a public school library, as if that wouldn’t trigger a hysterical administrative overreaction followed with, at minimum, suspension and a mandated psych evaluation …

It would be wrong to maintain such warning signs don’t exist. It goes without saying timely interventions might help make different outcomes. Still, it leaves the most important and relevant sign — the one that all but assures a killer’s “success” — completely ignored …

Read the rest.  Sandy Hook Promise is lying.  I’m so sure of it that I’ll offer this challenge.  Sandy Hook Promise cannot offer up even a single instance where a boy was reading a gun magazine in a public school library, watched a YouTube video on how to handle firearms, made shooting gestures in class, and went on to murder others while at school.

Can you?  Is anyone from Sandy Hook Promise reading this?  If so, I’ll eat my words if I’m wrong.  Give me a single example that’s a direct analogue to the one you show on that stupid video.  Prove to me that reading a gun magazine is evidence of planning a shooting of humans.  I dare you.  Comments are open.

The California Aggie:

Only California, Florida, Illinois, New York and South Carolina prohibit the open carry of handguns. That means 45 American states allow the intimidation of the public, wasting of law enforcement resources and endless opportunities for accidental injury caused by firearm misuse.

In a heart-wrenching moment following the July shooting of five police officers, Dallas Police Chief David Brown addressed the public and spoke on issues ranging from race to open carry laws.

“It’s increasingly challenging when people have AR-15s slung over and shootings occur in a crowd… We don’t know if they’re the shooter or not. We don’t know who the good guy is versus who the bad guy is if everybody starts shooting,” Brown said.

Especially during an emergency, trying to weed out the bad guys from the good guys — likely with limited information about the shooter to go off of in the first place — detracts from time that could be used to stop senseless violence and instead makes an officer’s job infinitely harder.

In this sense, times of crisis or high political tension should call for a limit on open carry laws. On the eve of the Republican National Convention, the head of Cleveland’s police union called for a temporary ban on the open-carrying of guns for fear of impending violence from protestors and dissented individuals. Stephen Loomis, the president of Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, accused open carry participants of irresponsibility, going on to say “you can’t go into a crowded theater and scream fire. And that’s exactly what they’re doing by bringing those guns down there.” Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s right. And openly carrying a firearm during a volatile situation isn’t right.

Open carry laws also scare the public into thinking there’s more wrongdoing than really exists. According to a San Mateo County Sheriff’s report, several incidents have arisen where people called police dispatch in response to seeing an individual carrying a revolver or a semi-automatic handgun on them. This leads to a waste of time when, consequently, police officers have to investigate these citizens who are simply “exercising their right,” but are really engendering unnecessary fear and trepidation in the minds of other citizens.

Yet sometimes this fear is more than justified. 10 minutes before an armed shooter walked into a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood, the Colorado Police Department received two calls regarding the shooter. One of the callers reported him as looking “scary” at several points during the call, but the emergency response technician acknowledged that Colorado is an open carry state so, technically speaking, he was not breaking any laws. He left three people dead and nine wounded just minutes later.

Open carry is a double-edged sword. Seeing an individual with a weapon displayed is undoubtedly scary, but reacting on this fear can have wasteful consequences on law enforcement resources if the individual carrying has no bad intentions. On the other hand, a lack of response from police dispatch can also have deadly ramifications.

What’s more worrisome, however, is the prospect of accidental misuse of a firearm in a public setting. Deputy Chief of the Davis Police Department Ton Phan said that states like Texas, where it is now legal to openly carry a handgun on college campuses, are especially at risk for these types of misuse.

This is what happens with little girls who don’t know anything about guns try to write articles about guns.  First of all we’ve covered the Dallas shooting.  No one in engaged in the fire fight stopped, went to Twitter, and tried to determine who the shooter was based on Twitter or any other social media.  That’s ridiculous.

They engaged the shooter until he was dead.  All of the additional work to identify whether there were other shooters was done after the fact.  Open carriers didn’t stop or adversely affect anything.  Furthermore, whether someone was open carrying is irrelevant.  That’s just a psychological issue the writer has, and the Police share it because they want to be the only ones who get to carry weapons.

Someone could just as easily have been a concealed carrier and been a shooter, so the act of open carrying meant absolutely nothing.  The same goes for the Colorado shooter, who open carried to his crime.  Make open carry illegal, and he’ll conceal carry to his crime.  It’s a matter of convenience for him.  Nothing more.

The write is equally confused concerning the danger open carriers pose compared to LEOs.  She is apparently unaware of the danger this assumption can be.

The catalog (even at this web site) of the awful muzzle and trigger discipline and behavior with guns is staggering: wrong home raids, pulling shotguns on a ten year old, pointing a pistol at a seven year old, being known as dog butchers, abusive treatment of innocent victims during a botched raid, dangerous gun play with other cops, lack of knowledge of the state of their weapons, negligent discharges, negligent discharges in an airport, killing dogs for sport, negligent discharges in police precincts, shooting each other while cleaning their weapons, hitting people on the head with guns, 600 rounds discharged in a rolling gun battle through the inner city, mistakenly shooting a gun instead of a taser, killing a man, firing a gun on a junior high campus, more negligent discharges in police stations, accidentally killing each other, shooting men in the back during raids, killing innocent men because of negligent discharges, throwing flash-bangs into baby cribs, pointing guns at city councilmen during meetings, firing rifles in court, negligent discharge of an AR-15, losing guns, 23 police officers firing 377 rounds at two men with no guns, losing machine guns, shooting each other while trying to kill dogs, and in the author’s own city, shooting 84 rounds at a man, missing with 83 of them.

So, little miss, go back to the drawing board, spend some time with gun owners and open carriers, interview them, go to the range with them and observe their safety protocols, and come back and write something less biased and more useful.  This one failed to hit the target.

AZFamily.com:

I was going up to Mount Lemmon to spend Monday night in a hammock that I was modifying for cold weather, and to enjoy looking at the super moon.

I was going to have lunch with a friend then proceed to the campsite near the top of Mt. Lemmon. The last time I spoke with my friend regarding lunch was Saturday, we were to speak about it again sometime Sunday. We did not do that, and I assumed that lunch was confirmed.

That was the first of several mistakes I made.

I started up Catalina Highway and had plenty of time to stop along the way.

I decided to check out a trail that I had not hiked in several years, Upper Green Mountain. It was about 11 a.m., I decided to go up the trail for about 20 minutes and then back down.

It is a pretty steep trail and pine needles made it difficult to see the trail. I had on a light long-sleeve cotton shirt, my hat, fishing vest (lots of pockets for stuff) and my water bottle with about 25 ounces.

Near the top I remembered that the trail went down the other side. I saw a path that went off trail to an interesting rock formation.

I went there for a little exploration, and headed back.

When I got back to where I went off trail, I had a major unexpected urge to have a BM.

I had taken a little extra magnesium that morning for some left leg cramps. So I got off-trail again, dug a hole, pooped and used about 1/2 of my water to wash my hands.

I looked around but did not see anything that looked like a trail. I thought I got here by going up, so to get back all I needed to do is go down.

Really big mistake.

I headed down for about 15 minutes and did not see the highway as expected. So I picked up my pace and decided to maintain one direction — I kept the sun on my back and headed north.

The terrain was very steep, and starting to get difficult to hike through. After about 1/2 an hour I thought I have to be near the road. Then I came to an area with a impassable cliff on the right and left. I was convinced this was the point of no return, no back tracking. I kept up a fast pace through some pretty difficult terrain, thick areas of shrub oaks and sticker bushes.

But I was still thinking I would find the highway.

After about 1 1/2 to 2 hours of going down the wrong side of the mountain, I realized that I was in really big trouble.

I was lost and would need to spend the night.

I was up on a ridge, looked down and saw a flat area somewhat clear of trees.

I remembered thinking about one of the most important things to do in a survival situation — keep a positive mental attitude. It would not help to be thinking about the mistakes I made that got me lost. I needed to focus on the present.

I started down to the clearing, came across a prickly pear cactus and cut off some pads for food, Great, I had a food source.

I arrived at my campsite and started gathering wood for a fire. I always carry a lighter in my vest, thank God!

While gathering wood I noticed bear poop, many very large piles of it, all around the campsite.

OK, positive mental attitude, fire will keep them away. And in case it didn’t, I tied the larger of my two knives to one of my ski poles.

The fire was in a water erosion ditch so there was no need to build a fire pit and could put longer logs in it and move them towards the fire as needed.

I had about 10 ounces of water left when I remembered another survival technique — I would have to start drinking my own urine.

Eating prickly pear pads have a side effect of diarrhea, which I found out the next day. To borrow a line from the pharmaceutical industry — ask your doctor if prickly pear pads and pee is right for you.

Having a sense of humor helps with positive mental attitude.

Anyway I had a collapsible camping cup in my vest so there was no need to pee in my water bottle while it still had water.

That night it was pretty cold, with a very cool breeze coming down the canyon.

I did not have a flashlight. I had to keep close to the fire, and rotated keeping my back, buttocks and legs warm.

The ground was cold and I couldn’t lay on my back for very long.

Also, I had to keep the fire going so I did not sleep that night

Sometime that night I saw what looked like several bright lights on the east side of the canyon. Could it be people? I shouted out hey, but in a little while realized it was that super moon coming up shining a little light through the pines.

Wow, the super moon was beautiful. I enjoyed the beauty and kept a positive mental attitude.

Time passed incredibly slowly that night.

He managed to make his way out and you can read the rest for yourself if you’re inclined.  But listen to me.  Drinking your own urine IS NOT a survival technique.  It’s a death technique.

Even on day hikes, I take at least the following in a day pack: cordage (550), gun, knife (serrated edge), tactical light, multiple fire starters, rubberized poncho, water, clothing for warmth (some sort of parka even in the summer), usually a light Mylar blanket, and energy bars.  At times I’ve carried a compass and maps if I don’t know the area.

Don’t do what he did.  If you escape into the wilderness in the Western U.S., your gun needs to be a big boy like a .44 Magnum or .454 Casull.  I sure wouldn’t carry anything less than .357 magnum.