Loading ...
As New Orleans flooded and whatever civil society the city could lay claim to disintegrated, those left behind needed two things: a powerful will to survive and a gun. Hurricane Katrina might end up being the best friend the Second Amendment ever had.
Gun dealers across the country are reporting increased sales. People who saw on television what happens when government can’t deliver on the promise of protecting its citizens are buying firearms as an insurance policy against anarchy.
That assurance of government-provided security has convinced individual Americans to gradually trade in their unrestrained constitutional right to bear arms.
But for days, there was no law in New Orleans and no government to speak of. All rules were off.
While the politically correct version of what happened is that desperate people looted stores for food and water, that’s only part of the story. Bands of armed hoodlums roamed the city, smashing their way into businesses and homes, carting off jewelry, liquor, televisions and other goods that had nothing to do with survival.
People were murdered, raped, stripped of their meager provisions.
Those with the best chance of surviving were the ones who had shotguns, rifles and pistols stashed away in closets and drawers.
Homeowner John Carolan ran off a mob of young men armed with knives and machetes and intent on stealing his generator by firing a few rounds from a .357 Magnum over their heads. "They scattered," he told reporters.
After looters poured into a nursing home and carted off the food, water and medicine, administrator Peggy Hoffman told the Associated Press, "we’ll have to equip our department heads with guns and teach them how to shoot."
Lots of Americans are thinking about shooting lessons today.
The tiresome question, "Why does anyone need a gun?" now has its answer.
http://www.detnews.com/2005/editorial/0509/18/A17-318167.htm
.Com Chatter