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.
I have had good luck also dialing .40, 223, 308, 30-06 and 357...
1) a 12 guage pump shotgun, like a Remington 870 or a Mossberg 500. Hands down, this is THE best weapon for home defense. Simple, easy to operate, and has absolutely hellacious effects on the bad guys, especially at close range. Cost is approximately $300-400 dollars.
2)A decent pistol. I'm partial to the 9mm Glock 17, which costs about $350.
3)An "assault" rifle. Any of the civilian variants of either the AK47 or the M16 would do fine. You can get a Romanian AK47 for under $300 or a decent M16/M4 clone for $800.
Just my humble opinion.
Any victim of violent crime or buglary in NO who had their weapon confiscated should have excellent grounds for a substantial personal lawsuit against the honorable mayor, I would presume.
Excellent articles. I should have included a .22LR rifle like the Ruger 10-22 as my #3 in my post to Paladin2.
That's a pretty serious training deficiency. You may want to contact your local indoor range and see if they can set something up for you. My local range will dim the lights for you if you call ahead of time and set up an appointment.
I would add some Katrina references, but in any event, I'm adding them to Domestic Enemies.
I was almost through writing EF&D when 9-11 happened, and that required some rewriting. I won't be surprised if some other shoe drops before publishing Domestic Enemies, requiring additional rewriting.
Thanks for the outrageous ping!
Just imagine a future president, with the power to use the military in a disaster on his own say-so, in the event of a biological attack.
Remember The Andromeda Strain? I can easily see entire counties cordoned off, with shoot to kill orders for "runners."
Nah, you don't need a therapist, a bigger gun vault maybe, but not a therapist!
Urah baby! My 15 year old daughter and I are drooling on your shotgun!
Is there such a thing as gun porn? I mean I just stared at the pics and thought, 'Yeah, baby.'
Ooohhh baby!!!
With that out of the way, you do not need a therapist. What you need is a trip to the local gun stores. Pick up a copy of the Shotgun News-its a newspaper type avaiable at walmart or bookstores and start checking out prices. Think of it as shopping! Gop to your local shooting range/gun club.People there would be willing to let you try their guns so you can decide on what type you want. If you had lived anywhere near me, I personally would would be willing to let you try my gun(s)-plural.
So sally forth and enjoy! If anyone asks why you're buying them a gun...just tell you are spending your children's inheritance.
have a great day. :)
can you own one of them in NJ?
Have Warren Riley (who should lose his job and never be allowed to work in law enforcement again) and every other police chief, mayor, congressman, each President, all the way down to the beat cop (each and every one), &c., write that sentence 500 times on the blackboard before taking office, and once every two months for the duration of his or her term.
The low ranking LEOS, the soldiers if you will, shall also write the above 500 times on the blackboard, and in addition to that, 500 of, "I am required to disobey any order that contains the word 'confiscate' or any other word that means the same thing, because such orders are illegal orders, and are in error."
More thinga that you're 100% right about is shooting under stress, as well as movement: Yours and your targets'. It's amazing how difficult it is to shoot accurately while under stress. We used to joke that to simulate the stress of a real combat situation, the start signal on the course should be a poke with an electical cattle prod! And it can be a bear to shoot while you're moving. Very difficult if you haven't practiced, as is shooting from odd positions, making use of what ever cover is available. And while shooting moving targets is easier than shooting while you're moving, it's not easier by much.
I used to compete in USPSA competition, and I've got a 1911 "race gun" that I would only use for defense if there was no other choice. It's a highly tuned combat weapon. It's 100% reliable: It's never jammed or stove piped, and I would guess that I've put at least 40,000 rounds through it. The gunsmith that did the work is named Leonard Beatty, and he did a terrific job. The problem is that it's got a very light trigger. Great for competition, but I would only use a handgun with a 1 1/2 pound trigger pull of there is absolutely nothing else.
For self defense, I would use my 625-5 (reloads are a snap, as fast as a semi-auto, due to full moon clips of .45ACP) or my Taurus PT-99 in 9mm, or my Star Firestar in .40S&W first. All 3 are 100% reliable, never having any sort of a stoppage.
BTW, when I used to get Guns and Ammo magazine, Cooper's Corner was always the first thing I'd read. One heck of a writer, and he came up with some great, memorable quotes. My greatest regret in firearms is that I never got around to getting my fat butt to Gunsite when he ran it...
Mark
"Just imagine a future president, with the power to use the military in a disaster on his own say-so . ."==========================================
| Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely |
| An observation that a person’s sense of morality lessens as his or her power increases. The statement was made by Lord Acton, a British historian of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. | 1 |
There you go! My son frequents a gun shop that is not too far from us; walking distance for him, a bus ride for me.
Once he showed me a new purchase and I asked jokingly if he'd gotten on the bus with it. I assumed he took a cab. "No, I walked."
"You walked down a main street w/a rifle??? Did anybody bother you?"
"No, ma, I'm walking down the street w/a rifle. Who's going to eff w/me?"
Good point.
I would have at least one handgun and one long gun, preferrably a shotgun. The handgun should be the largest caliber possible and no smaller than a .38. My shotgun is a 12 ga pump. 16 ga ok, definitely a pump (the noise will scare them off). For home self-defense "a handgun is only to get you to your long gun." And make sure all members of the household are trained. 8 yo is not too young to teach firearm safety.
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