"FROM MY DEAD COLD HANDS"
Posted on 09/15/2005 8:16:08 PM PDT by Happy2BMe
Katrina Educates World On Need For Owning Guns
"All our operators are busy right now. Please remain on the line and an operator will be with you shortly. Your call is important to us."
Can you imagine any words more horrifying after dialing 9-1-1? Your life's in danger, but there's no one available to help you.
For several days in September, life was absolutely terrifying for many New Orleans residents who got stranded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. There were no operators... there were no phone calls being handled.
Heck, there was no 9-1-1. Even if the phone lines had been working, there were no police officers waiting to be dispatched.
Hundreds of New Orleans police officers had fled the city. Some took their badges and threw them out the windows of their cars as they sped away. Others participated in the looting of the city.
While there were many officers who acted honorably -- even apprehending dangerous thugs while grieving the loss of their own family members -- most residents were forced to fend for themselves.
Many did so successfully, using their own firearms, until New Orleans Police Commissioner Edwin Compass III issued the order to confiscate their guns.
On September 8, several news outlets began reporting that officials in New Orleans were confiscating firearms... not from looters, but from law-abiding citizens who legally owned firearms!
"No one will be able to be armed," said Deputy Chief Warren Riley. "We are going to take all the weapons."
It was like a scene out of the former Soviet Union or Communist China.
The Associated Press quoted Compass, the police commissioner, as saying, "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons."
Well, there you have it. Given the chance, gun control advocates will always implement their real agenda -- confiscation of firearms from everyone... except the police!
ABC News video on September 8 showed National Guard troops going house-to-house, smashing down doors, searching for residents, and confiscating guns. Every victim of disarmament was clearly not a thug or looter, but a decent resident wanting to defend his or her home.
Many of the troops were clearly conflicted by their orders. "It is surreal," said one member of the Oklahoma National Guard who was going door-to-door in New Orleans. "You never expect to do this in your own country."
Many never would have expected it -- confiscating firearms from decent people who were relying on those firearms to protect themselves from the looters.
It was an outrageous order -- one that should not have been obeyed. There was no constitutional authority for the directive, and it ignored the fact that many good people had already used firearms to successfully defend their lives and property.
As flood waters started rising in New Orleans, a wave of violence rolled through the city.
"It was pandemonium for a couple of nights," said Charlie Hackett, a New Orleans resident. "We just felt that when [looters] got done with the stores, they’d come to the homes."
Hackett was right... which is why he and his neighbor, John Carolan, stood guard over their homes to ward off looters who, rummaging through the neighborhoods, were smashing windows and ransacking stores.
Armed looters did eventually come to Carolan's house and demanded his generator. But Carolan showed them his gun and they left.
No wonder then that gun stores, which weren't under water, were selling firearms at a record pace to people looking to defend themselves. "I've got people like you wouldn't believe, lots of people, coming in and buying handguns," said Briley Reed, the assistant manager of the E-Z Pawn store in Baton Rouge.
"I've even had soldiers coming in here buying guns," Reed said.
In the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, dozens of neighbors banded together to protect their neighborhood.
"There's about 20 or 30 guys in addition to us. We know all of them and where they are," Gregg Harris said. "People armed themselves so quickly, rallying together. I think it's why [our] neighborhood survived."
Harris isn't joking about the armaments. A gun battle erupted one afternoon between armed neighbors and looters. Two of the thugs were shot.
Since then, no more looters have bothered the neighborhood. But the neighbors aren't letting their guard down. They all take their turn keeping watch.
Gareth Stubbs sits in a rocking chair on his front porch, holding his shotgun and a bottle of bug spray.
In another home, a 74-year old mother keeps the following near the bed: her rosary, a shotgun and a 38-caliber pistol.
Vinnie Pervel and two other volunteers man a balcony-turned-watchtower with five borrowed shotguns, a pistol, a flare gun, and old AK-47 and loads of ammunition.
To be sure, many of the weapons were borrowed from neighbors who fled before the storm hit. Pervel and Harris did not have any working firearms themselves in the aftermath of the storm. But because Pervel had been keeping in contact (via phone) with neighbors who had already evacuated, he got permission to go into the vacant homes and get his neighbors' weapons.
"I never thought I'd be going into my neighbor's house and taking their guns," Pervel said. "We wrote down what gun came from what house so we can return them when they get back."
Firearms were a hot commodity
It would be an understatement to say that firearms were the hottest commodity in the days following the massive destruction. In Gulf Port, Mississippi, Ron Roland, 51, lost everything -- three homes, four cars, a bait-and-tackle shop and a boat. It was all destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
Nevertheless, Roland was determined to salvage what he could amidst the rubble -- with or without police protection. And it's a good thing, too, because there would be no such thing as "police protection" in the days following the storm.
Standing guard over one of his homes with a handgun in his waistband, Roland used his firearm to stop looters from rummaging through his storm-damaged property.
Roland and his son even performed a citizen's arrest on one plunderer and then warned future thieves by posting the following message in his yard: "NO TRESPASSERS! ARMED HOMEOWNERS."
Signs like this were common throughout the Gulf Coast region in the days following Katrina.
Unfortunately, some people had to learn the hard way about the utility of keeping firearms for protection.
The managers at the Covenant Home nursing center in New Orleans were more than prepared to ride out the hurricane. They had food and supplies to last the 80 residents for more than ten days.
They had planned for every contingency... or so they thought.
"We had excellent plans. We had enough food for 10 days," said Peggy Hoffman, the home's Executive Director.
But they had no firearms. So when carjackers hijacked the home's bus and drove by the center shouting "Get out!" to the residents, they were completely helpless.
All of the residents, most of them in wheelchairs, were evacuated to other nursing homes in the state.
Hoffman says she has now learned her lesson.
Next time, "We'll have to equip our department heads with guns and teach them how to shoot," she said.
Thank goodness someone is learning from their mistakes.
We should have learned this lesson more than ten years ago when the entire country saw horrifying images coming out of Los Angeles.
If the riots of 1992 taught us anything, it is that the police can't always be there to protect us.
For several days, that city was in complete turmoil as stores were looted and burned. Motorists were dragged from their cars and beaten.
Further aggravating the situation, police were very slow in responding to the crisis. Many Guardsmen, after being mobilized to the affected areas, sat by and watched the violence because their rifles were low on ammunition.
But not everybody in Los Angeles suffered. In some of the hot spots, Korean merchants were able to successfully protect their stores with semi-automatic firearms.
In areas where armed citizens banded together for self-protection, their businesses were spared while others (which were left unprotected) burned to the ground.
The pictures of Korean merchants defending their stores left quite an impression on one group of people living in Los Angeles: those who had previously identified themselves as gun control advocates.
Press reports described how life-long gun control supporters were even running to gun stores to buy an item they never thought they would need -- a gun. Tragically, they were surprised (and outraged!) to learn there was a 15-day waiting period upon firearms.
Fast forward more than a decade, it seems that many folks still haven't learned the lessons from previous tragedies. If the Mayor and his cronies really wanted to help the decent citizens of New Orleans, they would have been issuing people firearms instead of taking them away.
These guns were the only thing that prevented many good folks from becoming victims in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Now that residents are disarmed, will the Mayor provide 24-hour, round-the-clock protection for each of these disarmed families? Will he make himself personally liable for anyone who is injured or killed as a result of being prevented from defending himself or his family?
When your life is in danger, you don't want to rely on a police force that is stretched way too thin. And the last thing you want to hear when you call 9-1-1 is, "All our operators are busy right now...."
That might just be the last thing you ever hear.
Let me tell you something sad. I was talking to an old friend that I email and talk to a few times a year. One thing led to another and we started talking about guns and home protection.
I told her that no one belongs in my house and that they deserve what they get if they try to come in. She honestly had a problem with this. She hesitated, hemmed and hawed, and finally said, "Well, I don't know." I was stunned. "You don't know if some stranger belongs in your house?? What do you think he's coming in there to do? Aren't you willing to protect yourself?" Answer: not with a gun.
We're both the same age. While I have a grown son living w/me, she is a single woman. My son lives his own life and certainly doesn't stay around me all the time. Do you think I don't have a way of protecting myself when he's not here? I don't understand a mindset that says it's ok for some creep to come into your place.
I guess it's no surprise that my friend is in education and a good liberal. What is with these people??
*THAT* would definitely get their attention...
the infowarrior
They have been thoroughly "educated" (read indoctrinated) into believing that it is immoral, if not illegal, to defend oneself. Thus, they become prey to the aggressive types. Once they have been preyed upon, the hue and cry goes up, and "the state" gets more power purportedly to defend those who cannot defend themselves, but actually it's to prey on these unfortunates (who would not be unfortunates, if they only tossed that indoctrination into the ash heap of history, where it belongs) yet again...
the infowarrior
Any term the refers to you in the single will fail.
You know the saying
When the came for the........
You know that cartoon needs to be on billboards
We call it Texas porn here in Baghdad.
"From my dead cold hands"
"FROM MY DEAD COLD HANDS"
I have more than some concern when LEO start confiscating weapons, when law abiding citizens are being disarmed and then have the president say in a speech that the military is going to be more involved in future disaster relief.
Paranoid? Maybe. But if the founding fathers of this great country had gone along with King George . . . . . . .
Use your imagination to fill in the last words of the last sentence.
LOL! Naw, your AOK!
The NRA really should be coughing up some lawyers to go after some of these people.
It helped that the Germans had the first fully integrated and mechanized armor/plane tactics, while the Poles weren't fully mobilized and still had cavalry divisions. Small home arms would have helped the resistance afterwards but I don't think they would have significantly prolonged the main battle.
I believe that none other than Jeff Cooper ("the father of modern combat handgunning") once said that "a pistol is what you use to fight your way back to your weapon."
Given a choice, in most cases I would prefer a longarm, either a shotgun or rifle, to a handgun. But I'm perfectly happy with a handgun... Preferably my S&W 625-5 revolver (worked over by Ron Power!)
I've got a 1911 as well, and am quite well practiced with it, but I've got mixed feelings about it in a self defense situation: I've always felt that a single action semi-auto is less a defensive weapon than a revolver. Of course, that wouldn't stop me from using it.
Mark
THE MSM WILL NOT TOUCH THIS!
It goes against what they personnaly feel as being right. Hence it will get little publicity.
However, Bowling For Columbine will get numerous awards for best film!
But remember, there is no agenda here!
Red6
They should have put that deputy chief idiot in the super dome unarmed.
He would have a different view and the good people of NOLA should have put a contract on Nagin's sorry incompetent racist ass.
Nagin knows because of his race, no harm will come to him from the criminals, but what about the unarmed law abiding caucasians and others?
I hope the good citizens, file suit against Nagin/Blanco and the other La officials for reckless endangerment to include violating their second amendment rights.
When you have an idiot like Nagin in charge, only the law abiding citizens suffer due to his liberal mentality and racist attitude.
Saying only what needs to be said,
NSNR-CSAOTL
Amen to that and fire all NOLA elected officials from the top to the bottom.
They need to put some "real men" in charge who will protect the innocent law abiding citizens, not the perps.
Nagin did not want to see caucasians and other law abiding citizens protect their families', live's and propertie(s) from the barbarian criminal sugar tit government bred hordes.
NOLA&La sixty years of being on the democratic plantation and thus the true results revealed for all to see.
Justice not Just Us,
NSNR-CSAOTL
When dealing with NOLA cops (not all) guns make that long green fill up wallet fast when arming the criminals.
I would like to see DOJ investigation into the activities of the NOLAPD.
This has been a cancer for too, long and needs to be removed surgically. To who it applies, " Let The Chips Fall Where They May."
(Protect and Serve is in no way equivocal to Loot, Assault and Shun One(s) Oath As A Police Officer)
As I See It,
NSNR-FH
Moring IW,
Well said and the truth. Those commie teachers and professors have programmed many children that only the minorities are allowed to attack others physically(accepted)
Communism has reached all aspects of our society with the agenda of destroying America from within.( Nikita Krueschev) visited America and stayed in Harlem to fan the flames of hatred.
People need to wake up and smell the opossum,
NSNR-WNNS
Exhale, squeeze don't pull, make every shot a surprise...
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