Massad Ayoob's Blog, page 19

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

My lovely bride and I wish you and yours the best of holidays, and I’m sure we speak for the rest of the Backwoods Home family as well. What did you get for Christmas? What did you give? You’re invited to share your experiences of the holiday here.

A FASCINATING READ

My friend Herman Gunter III turned me on to “The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I” by Douglas Brunt (Atria books, 2023). I am grateful: I learned a lot from reading it. For the more mechanically inclined among you, Brunt shows us how critical Diesel’s […]

THE AR15 HUNTING RIFLE

It’s not just wordplay that led the pro-gun people to refer to the AR15 as a Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR).  Yes, it has almost entirely replaced the shotgun as the heavy artillery in American police patrol cars. Yes, it is well on its way to supplanting the shotgun as America’s most popular home defense long […]

CHRISTMAS IS COMING

Christmas approaches. We’re pretty busy here, and we haven’t had time to discuss the upcoming holiday much.  When the Evil Princess becomes exasperated with me and blurts “Christ, Mas!” it’s not the same thing. (And doesn’t have much Christmas spirit in the tone.) But, enough about us. Who among you is planning to give the […]

DO WE NEED COLLEGE-TRAINED COPS?

Because I’m the only one of Backwoods Home’s writers with a law enforcement background, I sort of wound up by default being the resident writer on criminal justice issues. Forty-plus years sworn, part-time but for most of those years in a supervisory capacity over full- and part-time municipal officers alike. Nineteen years as chair of […]

REFLECTIONS ON PEARL HARBOR DAY

It is December 7, Pearl Harbor day.  There remain many timeless lessons of preparedness from this pivotal historical event.  One of those many is, keep monitoring your radar and when there is a blip thereon, don’t ignore it. Another is one we’ve seen repeated of late. Consider the 2022 invasion of the Ukraine, when that […]

‘TIS THE SEASON

No, I don’t mean Christmas, though we’ll get to that soon enough. Heck, Christmas season started about the day after Halloween, with Thanksgiving apparently becoming the step-child of fourth-quarter holidays. (Did you notice you don’t see turkeys and pilgrims on merchandisers’ signs anymore? It went straight from pumpkins and ghosts to the Xmas stuff.) I’m […]

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM OUR GREAT-GRANDDAUGHTER

The smiling face you see on that Christmas-y package is none other than our great grand-daughter, Paisley.At one year old, this was already her third modeling assignment.Takes after her great-grandmother for beauty, methinks. You can find the products here.

THE CHAUVIN APPEAL

The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis set of a chain of riots and conflagrations which all but defined violent tribalism in America in this decade. Derek Chauvin, the police officer who held Floyd down in the street as he died, was convicted of murder and is presently serving a lengthy sentence. His appeal requesting […]

ATTENTION, REVOLVER ENTHUSIASTS!

By popular demand, we are going to offer a two-day double action revolver class. With all due modesty, I’ve been teaching cops and others to survive with revolvers since 1972, have won numerous state and regional championships and one national title with revolvers and have assembled a staff of ace wheel-gunners to assist in putting […]