Massad Ayoob's Blog, page 21

HOLLYWOOD’S GUN CONTROL HYPOCRITES

For your viewing pleasure and enlightenment: And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.  Share others you know of, here.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The holiday season is supposed to be happy, so that right there keeps me from writing anything about politics for 2024, at least for now.  Heaven knows, we can expect to be dealing with enough of that in this space in the year to come. New Year’s Resolutions are A Thing.  Mine include slowing down […]

SPARE EIGHT MINUTES FOR A REALITY CHECK?

Many of the gun prohibitionists don’t realize how bloodthirsty they seem when they count only cases where the armed citizen kills a criminal in self-defense. The vast majority of DGU (defensive gun use) saves result in no bloodshed at all when an intended victim or good Samaritan causes the criminal to break off the attack […]

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 […]