Epoch Times.

A dog in South Africa adopted from the SPCA into a loving forever home has repaid her owners a thousandfold after two armed robbers broke into their house and opened fire. The mixed breed, Kei, was shot in the face while ferociously protecting the family’s young lady.

Those armed intruders on Oct. 3 broke into the family’s Lakefield Benoni home; one gunman entered the master bedroom, where a terrifying firefight ensued, and was shot dead; the other man entered the eldest daughter’s room where Kei was poised on her bed ready to defend her owner.

Kei sprang at the gunman with a forcefulness that surprised him. He turned and fled, leaving a trail of blood as he ran down the stairs, and encountered the family’s Biewer Yorkie Holly and shot her dead.

Hot on his tail, Kei faced the man in the kitchen where he shot her in the face, shattering her jaw, and then escaped the house and leapt over the wall.

Kei, in a desperate bid to seek help, yet unable to bark with her terrible mouth injury, ran outside to the gate to alert the neighbors but found no one. She then bounded down to the nearby lake, where she often goes on walks, in search of help, but to no avail.

The family, desperately searching for Kei, drove the streets and after 40 minutes found her laying in the grass by the water.

They called the Boksburg SPCA and Kei was taken for treatment. She was lucky to be alive. The bullet had severely injured her tongue, blasted through two molars, and broken her jaw.

She had to be put on an IV and could not eat for many weeks to come. Eventually, though, once the doctors were sure there was no infection and an X-ray showed that all the bullet fragments had been extracted, she was taken to have surgery and have a titanium plate prosthesis put in to restore her shattered mandible.

Get you one of them.  If you don’t have a dog, you’re missing out on one of the greatest opportunities for love and protection.  You’re life will change.

Via David Codrea, this amusing missive from Larry Keane.

The Axios/Ipsos poll asked Hispanic-Americans about their top concerns and crime and violence came in at the number two spot at 30 percent – behind only COVID worries at 37 percent. Per Axios, “The finding is a warning for President Biden ahead of next year’s midterms.” A similar Wall Street Journal poll from a week earlier showed Hispanic voters are turning away from Democrats, typically supportive of more gun control, and are now nearly evenly split between their party preferences.

[ … ]

The overlay of rising crime concerns for Hispanic-Americans and their firearm purchasing is stark. According to NSSF retailer survey data, law-abiding Hispanic-Americans purchased firearms in 2020 at a 49 percent higher rate than they did in 2019. That swing of Hispanic-Americans’ preference showed in the 2020 presidential election where former President Donald Trump’s message of law and order and support for the Second Amendment resonated. The former president garnered 10 percent more Hispanic-American vote share than he did in 2016.

The trends stood out in states like Texas and California. LaPolitica Online reported on the swing of Hispanic-Americans purchasing firearms. Rafael Cedillo owns a firearm safety business where he offers training and educational courses in El Paso wherein 2019 a murderer killed 23 people at Walmart. “It’s sad, but my business really booms after a tragic incident,” Cedillo said. The firearm buying surge left his business busy. “After the one in El Paso, my home, I couldn’t fit everyone into my schedule.”

Take careful note.  A “swing” in what party the Hispanics like (see his section headers) … they “purchased firearms at a [blah-blah-blah] higher rate (which says nothing about the previous rate or whether they believe in gun control).

This is what you do when you have nothing else to say.  I repeat what I’ve observed before.  Hispanics and Latinos favor gun control by 71% according to Pew.

Immigration is a gun rights issue.  Larry Keane is telling the wrong story.

If you like this sort of thing, Hilton Head has a nest of Bald Eagles under camera watch.

Source.

This is an interesting and informative video, but I’m not so sure about some of his points.  For example, he seems to be coming from the notion that all combat is ambush style in the jungles of Vietnam and that the only solution for that is fully automatic fire.

In Afghanistan, the Marines were most successful when they carried fewer magazines, conserved ammunition, made well placed shots on target, and did so using superior marksmanship skills compared to the enemy fighters. I’ve documented cases where a mere handful of magazines sufficed for a day and a half or more of combat in Marine engagements.

Logistics is not endless, and the ability of the foot soldier to carry weight on his back is not endless.

I hope you had a great Christmas and celebrated the advent of our Lord with your Family.  I also hope that you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ in the coming year.

For one special reader out there – you know who you are and I won’t mention your name because you wouldn’t like it – I am left completely speechless and dumbfounded by the gift.  I am certainly undeserving of it, but that’s what grace is all about.  Being undeserving, having done absolutely nothing to earn it.  That is perfectly exemplary of Christmas and redemption.

Thank you.

I cannot say enough about the value of you and your wife’s friendship with my wife and me.

The possibilities.

First, you need to have a solid bench and vise to hold your gun in place.

Second, you, as the shooter, need to be calm and able to follow through on your shot. If you wiggle or flinch at the pull of your trigger, you will need to shoot more shells to accomplish a bullseye.

Third, it really helps if you have a buddy along who can assist you.

Fourth, your target needs to be at a distance where you will be able to see your bullet holes through your scope. Usually 50 or 100 yards is fine for most rifle scopes that go up to 9 or 12 power.

How the process works is that you shoot one shot right at the bullseye. If your scope is hitting the mark, you’re golden and very fortunate.

If you see your bullet is off the mark, there’s an easy way to rein it in.

While having the gun still pointed on the bullseye on your vise or rest, ask your buddy to move the reticle adjustments while you watch through the scope. Again, the key is for the rifle to remain in a fixed position. Only the reticles of the scope move during this process.

Advise your buddy to turn the scope adjustments in the direction to the bullet hole. Keep in mind the arrow directions on the scope may be opposite of what you are telling your assistant to go. If so, just say “the other way.”

Once the scope is now pointed at the bullet hole, you are ready to fire a second shot. Realize the gun never moved — only the scope’s adjustments advanced to go to the point of the first bullet’s impact.

If everything was held steady and you have a good follow-through, your second bullet should be on target. I like to shoot at least a third shot to make sure the second shot wasn’t a fluke.

My former Marine Corps son claims he can do with this without assistance.  The best I’ve ever been able to do is sight in a muzzle loader in about 6 shots, dead center at 50 yards.

I enjoy shooting, so it doesn’t much matter to me except for the cost of the ammunition, and that’s just a sunk cost for having fun.

The first rule of gun club is that you don’t talk about gun club.  But I will say this much.  I agree with Tim that Dan Wesson makes a very good 1911.  Dan Wesson is owned by CZ now.  That was a good purchase by an already good company.

I want to tell you two stories today.  They are both true, factual, and happened in time and space.

First, I recently listened to a sermon which I consider among the top ten worst, most horrid, most theologically inept sermons I’ve ever run across in my life.

The pastor mentioned the advent of the Son of God, Jesus, who is the Christ, once or twice, and then quickly pivoted to the second coming, the thing we truly are here to celebrate, and His reign of peace on earth, lasting 1000 years, in which He will be the supreme political ruler, issuing edicts that everyone will obey.  As I said, he mentioned the advent of Christ only in passing to set up his favorite topic, the eschaton according the dispensationalist, premillennial theology.

As I said, I consider it to be one of the worst sermons I’ve ever witnessed, mostly because considered topically, it completely missed the whole point and the reason we were gather together to celebrate Christmas.  I wish I hadn’t heard this sermon.  It was just that bad.

No, no, no, no, no, no, and a thousand times no! The advent isn’t about the second coming, stupid pastors notwithstanding.

Now to the second story.  It occurred in time and space, some 2000 years ago, and it is true and factual.  Gab sent out a post on the miracle of Christ’s birth, stating that it is “arguably the single most important event in human history.”  No, there is no argument.  It is without a single doubt the most significant event in history, human history and redemptive history.  My former professor, Dr. C. Gregg Singer, taught repeatedly that in order to understand history, one has to understand the history of the church.  Not the institutional church, but the body of believers through history.

Before the idiot pagan historians tried to change it (to BCE and CE), history is dated as BC and AD (Before Christ and Anno Domini), history was seen as revolving around, based on, and centered about one event in history, i.e., the advent of our Lord.  Years decreased as the time got closer, and years increased after that momentous event, as if a funnel through which God poured out His blessing.

The Pharisees expected that their savior would come as a king and political appointee, bash the ruling Roman empire, and set himself up on a throne and once again make the Jewish nation grand.  Jesus disappointed those expectations.  He was born in a stable (literally, a cave), because there wasn’t a home to which He could go to be born.  To keep Him from freezing to death, Mary had to wrap him in the rags used to clean the feed troughs and clean the shit out of stalls.  The picture of Jesus wrapped in clean, white clothing is a sanitized lie.  He was chased literally from the day He was born by wicked rulers who wanted to kill Him.

He was God come in the flesh, abominable to the mind of the Pharisees.  The whole thing was a scandal.  A miracle yes, but a scandal.  This was the beginning of what theologians call the “Humiliation of Christ.”  His birth was among common men, his life was one of the carpenter, making things with his hands, He had no respect for the religious leaders, He didn’t come up through their “pipeline,” He carried His cross, and He perished over crimes He didn’t commit (but because He took the since of His people with Him to the cross).

Scandalous.  Not robed on gaudy tapestry, not hobnobbing with the religious leaders, but hanging with tax collectors and whores.  Scandal.  But it was He who would sacrifice His own life to appease the wrath of the Father.

²¹ She will give birth to a Son; and you shall name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” ²² Now all this took place so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: ²³ “Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they shall name Him Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”

In addition to saving His people, that is, all who believe in Him, the point of His birth of lowly means was to demonstrate to the religious leaders of the day that they didn’t understand sin and the fallen nature of man, the law of God, their need for a savior, or the nature of His kingdom.

His kingdom, you see, is in the hearts of men with whom He is well pleased (Luke 2:12-14).  The dispensational premillennialists make the same mistake the Pharisees made.  They think that God is going to make it all happen in an instant for us all, ruling on a political throne, with us as the bystanders.  You are aware, no doubt, that the dispensationalists, heavily Zionistic in emphasis, see this period of history as the great “uh oh” by God.  His original plan was to do just that, set up a political throne.  When He was rejected by the Jews, God had to revert to another plan (quite the inept God, yes?).

That second plan was to focus on the church, which they name the “Parenthesis.”  You and I are living in the “parenthesis” period of history according to them, where God gets a mulligan, a do-over because His first plan screwed up.

In reality, God became man living among us, died for His people, and commissioned them to go about making disciples and taking dominion for His glory.  Yes, I am a Christian reconstructionist, and always will be (viz. R. J. Rushdoony).  You see, God hasn’t told us He is going to snap His fingers and do this for us.  He sent His Holy Spirit as a helper and He has given us all the tools necessary for victory, and even ordained and decreed our eventual victory.  But He will watch with joy as His children are gathered to Himself and the world is taken for His glory.

This is no parenthesis in history.  It is history, His Story.  Everything is as intended, and there are no surprises to Him.  He had decreed it all, and it will all redound to the glory of His Son, fully God and fully man.  This is the advent, the most important and monumental occurrence in all of history.  The angels sang great songs to His praise upon His birth.  The heavens couldn’t keep silent.  The shock and glory and wonder of the sovereign of the universe taking on bodily form to save His people was too awesome for them.  Wise men came and worshipped Him.  Rulers wanted Him dead because of the threat He posed.

It was revealed to Simeon that he would not pass until he had seen the advent of the Lord’s Christ.  He did so, and could then pass away a joyful man (Luke 2:25f).  Celebrate this momentous event with your heart and soul.  This isn’t about Santa Claus.  This isn’t about the second coming.  This is about the most important event in all of history.  God is with us.

Enjoy this by Diane Bish and The King’s Brass.  Little known to most people, I once played trombone on an amateur basis, and got a chance to play along with The King’s Brass when they rolled through my city.

I know very little about NODS, IR laser devices, or how they are used.  Therefore, I found this review to be interesting and informative.  I also find the narrator to be helpful and focused on the basics and rudiments when he needs to be, but not condescending like some presenters over YouTube.

BLUF: If you’re into this sort of thing, know what you’re getting.  It’s too expensive to throw money away.  For the rest of us, it’s just too pricey to enter the market.