Law-Abiding Citizens Take Up Arms To Defend Against Looters

[The Real Hawkeye]

Just imagine that you were there and had prepared for the worst. Therefore, you had plenty of bottled water for yourself and family. Lots of canned foods, etc. Now imagine all the people who didn't prepare out desperate for food and water to keep their loved ones alive. In a mob mentality, or even just motivated by a desire for water and food, these people will be searching for your stock of food and water, and probably very willing to deprive you of it to get it. The first person who proceeds against you will think of you as selfish, and therefore undeserving of respect, when they attempt to snatch and grab. After all, they are just forcing you to do what's "right," i.e., share with them so they can keep themselves and their family alive too. Then dozens of others will follow suit, until you have nothing left, and you and your family die of dehydration before help can arrive. The only thing that will prevent this outcome is being well armed. No matter where you live, this situation is just one natural (or man made) disaster away. This, among other reasons, is why we have the right to keep and bear arms. I wish the liberals could remember this the next time they attempt to deprive us of the ability to defend ourselves because "the police are there to protect us." The police will be assisting the emergency workers, and will be entirely too preoccupied by the emergency to protect anyone from looters and thieves in a disaster of this magnitude. Unarmed people in situations like this are nothing but sheep to be sheered by the starving and thirsty masses.

 

[twency]

We had a week to prepare and we didn't.

Simply false. The storm was not predicted to be this intensity a week in advance.

Also, regarding price caps: Artificially capping the price of gas will do nothing to help, and something to hurt, the supply of gasoline. Certain refinery capacity is GONE. Capping the price of gasoline won't bring it back. What it will do is insulate the consumer from feeling the true pain of the situation. THAT'S NOT GOOD. In order for people to truly understand the need to conserve, they need to be hit where it hurts, in the wallet. It may sound cruel to you, but it's simply reality. Personally, I'll be combining trips to the store and work and other errands into as few trips as possible for a while, because I can't afford to buy as much gas. I don't like it, but it means I'm consuming less. This is the free market doing precisely what it is supposed to do. Price caps would simply tell everyone that there's really nothing to worry about, and they should feel free to fill their tank. No politician pleading for restraint in gasoline purchases will do nearly as much good as higher prices at the pump.

As for thinking that the relief isn't being managed well: I hereby appoint you head of FEMA. You obviously know better how to coordinate tens of thousands of disaster relief volunteers, National Guard troops, doctors, nurses, police officers, bus drivers, shelter operators, coroners, and other various and sundry people all of whom are urgently needed. Infrastructure takes time to build. Even on an emergency basis, a disaster of this scale takes time to manage. The relief work has been steadily building in intensity and productivity since day one. I think it's nearly miraculous that so many people who stayed have now been evacuated giving the appalling conditions in the area. Add to the mix the idiots shooting at helicopters and rescue boats, and holding up medical convoys headed to hospitals and it's amazing anything is getting done at all.

-twency

 

[Henry Bowman]

Hawkeye - I made the same observation to my wife last night, with one additional point. Not only must you be willing and able to defend your (well planned) means of survival from looters and desperate (due to lack of planning on their part) people, you must be ready to defend against the .gov "rescuers" who would take your means of survival "for the common good."

 

[dsquared]

Who is in charge?

Compare the NO situation to other disasters. Remember the news conferences and briefings in NY after 911 or the daily updates from the fire and police chiefs in OK City? Guilliani was villified before 911. Then everyone loved him. He was exhibiting leadership.The feds were always there making a point that they were there "supporting the local officials." Having strong local officials in charge of an incident is more than just window dressing.

I've heard a lot of reporters asking why the feds haven't taken control and blaming them for the whole situation. This hurricane has been a disaster in MS AL and Louisiana. The govenors of those states are in charge. The feds are there to support. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want the feds to come to my state and take over an incident. I've seen Gov Barber on TV. He makes no bones about running the show. I believe him.

I haven't seen the Mayor of NO in days. The Gov of Louisana just seems sad about the whole thing. (Don't say it's the woman thing either. Margaret Thatcher would have lowered the boom)

Is the lack of leadership to blame for a lot of what we're seeing?

(That's a rhetorical question................)

 

[TheEgg]

Quote from President Bush this morning on the relief effort: "The results are un-acceptable".

Yep.

 

[atblis]

I think I'll be ordering

and storing
A couple thousand rounds of 9mm
A couple thousand rounds of 223
A couple thousand rounds of 7.62x39

Here's my looter policy.
Unarmed looters get a warning (and then shot).
Armed looters get shot on sight (Machete, Knife, BrycoJennings .25, etc.).

 

[dpesec]

Dsquared,
Right, Glenj asked why we can send troops and aid at a moment's notice to a foreight country. Simple, there's no political or legal issues. Here in the CONUS there's processes and procedures. I don't know but I suspect the NO mayor didn't have a clue what to do. Look at how the neighboring parrshes acted. They took steps up front to prevent problems.
Leadership is what the people are looking for, they aren't getting it.

Now, it's not entirely the mayor's fault. Today, we are so conditioned to pick-up our cell phone and call people, turn on a radio or TV. Well, guess what those don't exist there. Once the power grid fails, communication fails. This is a problem with our communication plans. O hope that FEMA, DHS and other powers to be understand and make changes.

 

[BeLikeTrey]

+1 egg

yep!

and ...
"how to coordinate tens of thousands of disaster relief volunteers, National Guard troops, doctors, nurses, police officers, bus drivers, shelter operators, coroners, and other various and sundry people all of whom are urgently needed. Infrastructure takes time to build."

Thats why the groups are already created, and each has it's own infrastructure. Don't tell me standard operating procedures haven't been created previously. but then again, nothing was done in preparation except evacuation. so I think you seem to be defending no preparation, or steps made preemptively, except evacuation am I correct?

Look I already know the answer, no need to answer, it was more rhetorical...I think I'll cut out before threadlock.

 

[Azrael256]

Listen to one of these sites repeating the state police and national guard radios for a couple of hours, and you'll get a very disturbing impression. Last night, around 2100 CDT, I listened to somebody (not sure who, but he had a LSP radio) begging the dispatcher to get the cops out to the superdome. It seems that the whole department showed up at shift change, but disappeared completely shortly thereafter. A few thousand ticked off people and no cops made for what he called a "volatile situation." An hour or so later, somebody directing a convoy of trucks loaded with MREs and water was calling in asking for directions and escort. I heard him make the same request no less than five times over an hour. They can't put together enough logistics to move this food, which is on-hand and ready to distribute, to the people who need it because of a disturbing lack of organization. This whole response is just one gigantic Charlie Foxtrot.

If they can't even direct a truckload of food to a gigantic stadium, what exactly makes them think they can secure an entire city? They'd need a few divisions of MPs to get the job done.

 

[Tankcommander]

I heard an interview on radio from the Mayor of NO and he sounded like a complete buffoon. He would be more at home with the looters then the leaders. Just a thought about speed of response it takes 12 to 24 hours to move the alert battalion of the 82nd Airborne any where in the world that's about 1000 men kept on 2 hour alert.

NO needs 10s of thousands of people and thousands of tons of supplies moved into an area that has had the infrastructure destroyed. This takes time and the local government is incompetent and severely handicapped the NOPD is no NYPD that's for sure. They are asking all DHS employees to volunteer to go down and help.

TC

 

[Sleeping Dog]

somebody directing a convoy of trucks loaded with MREs and water was calling in asking for directions and escort

Partly funny, mostly not.

Directions? I picture the convoy headed up by a 2nd Lieutenant with a compass and a topographical map of the New Orleans area. The map, of course, is just a blank piece of paper as there are no "elevation" lines in the area. "Lieutenant, the destination is at the top of hill number minus-six. what is your problem?"

Escort? Dam strait. The convoy may be going through a gauntlet of marauding looters, carrying arms they stole from gunshops or from the D-Day Museum. I'd want NG with attitude and arms.

 

[ID_shooting]

Having been in a couple of disaster relief details while in the Army (St Joes, Mo in and Cuba while the Marines were in Haiti) I feel qualified to pipe in my worthless two cents.

Why isnt the military being used to secure the area? Simple, they can't. Unless we are attacked or some similar event, armed federal troops can not be used on US soil. For every person here screaming about "Why are the Fed troops being used" there would be a dozen others screaming about JBTs and the Executive Branch over stepping it's boundaries if they did. About the best the Feds can legally do is offer humanitarian aid and I am sure that they are being used for that as we speak.

Why werent the oil reserves opened up prior to the event? Simple here as well, No capacity to store it. If you think of logistscs, certain principles apply here. Production vs. storage. The chain works like this, you take raw material, process it then store it. Since that takes massive amounts of time to do, the later wasn't an option. The storage of the finished product is finite. You have to open up space through consumption in order to be able to produce more or build more storage facilities. Now that space is open, the reserves were tapped into and the processors can produce more becuase they have a place to put it. This applies to any consumable beit food, potable water, fuel, anything.

Security? Well this is not quite so simple. As stated above, there are a few classes of people, the haves that will share, the haves that will not share as well as the have-nots that will work for what they need and the have-nots that will do whatever they need to become the haves. Is policing up all available supplies and then rationing them out to the people ala "Lucifer's Hammer" the right thing to do? Many think so, but then you have to deal with people that say "this is MINE and you will have to kill me before I give it to you." What do you do with those? Firends and I have talked, were we still single, we wold have loaded up and been on our way, unfortuantely, we have families now and can not just run off. What I feel needs to happen is a leader step up to the plate and organize a volunteer security force, well marked, and use them to patrol for luters. If the area can be secure, then the "die hard haves" may feel better about sharing what the have stored up. Where will these volunteers come from? I think there are many willing to "cowboy up" if called up and organized. How many here would do it?

Would I have all the answeres? Heck no. But these few items are sure easy for me to see, but then I am sitting up here in dry Idaho so take that for what it is worth.

 

[Janitor]

Translation: We didn't know that there wouldn't be government givaways of free food/water/lodging/electricity/sanitation, etc. The goverment teat has never run dry before. We thought we would be escalated in status as 'victims.'

+2

The problem with entitlement. Our system has created a class of citizen who has no interest in being a productive member of society, much less even taking care of themselves & their families. To them, being a provider means knowing how the wellfare system works. The obvious choice for them is that since everything is always free if it's not being given to you it's ok to just take it. That's what the rest of us are here for - to support the people who've no interest in their own well being.

Let's just not lose sight of the fact that these societal leeches aren't the only people trapped in NO right now.

 

[GunGoBoom]

Bravo, Real Hawkeye; well said.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

The problem with entitlement. Our system has created a class of citizen who has no interest in being a productive member of society, much less even taking care of themselves & their families. To them, being a provider means knowing how the wellfare system works. The obvious choice for them is that since everything is always free if it's not being given to you it's ok to just take it. That's what the rest of us are here for - to support the people who've no interest in their own well being.

Very true. My work takes me around teenagers from poor neighborhoods. What I heard yesterday was pretty typical of their attitude. The young hoodlum said, "Sh*t, if the price of gas goes up any higher, I'm gunna start stealing it, and you can't complain because the prices are too high." So, if the price gets too high for him to afford enough, then he is justified in stealing it, because he apparently has a right to have gas at a certain price level.

 

[svtruth]

Hep yo se'f

Obviously we only see what the media films/photos and then shows, but I haven't seen anyone building a shack from scrap lumber, a fire from same and boiling water. They need food, shelter and water, that would fix two out of three.

 

[PaulV]

In any response to an emergency situation you'll always find something that could have been done better. Hindsight is 20/20.

Most of the Monday morning quarter-backing is being done by folks who've never run a lemonade stand in their lives let alone coordinated the movement and distribution of millions of tons of supplies over an area that has had its infrastructure destroyed.

These reporters, politicians, celebrities, and internet logisticians should just shut up until the adults have cleaned up the mess. Then they can get back to their bashing. They are showing themselves to be very small people in the midst of a national catastrope.

 

[Janitor]

So, if the price gets too high for him to afford enough, then he is justified in stealing it, because he apparently has a right to have gas at a certain price level.

That is just so special. This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about.

 

[hboy35]

and this

is the very class of people who they are importing to my great State of Texas! Wonderful. Lock up the women and children, and put a few more shells in the mag....

 

[Byron Quick]

Open the oil reserves early enough to get it in the supply chain that was not in danger... even if the hurricane passed us by, the added oil to the supply, before I cut the reserves again if it didn't hit, would help at the pump. Couldn't have hurt.

BeLikeTrey,

Obviously, you haven't researched the problem enough to realize what the problem is with gasoline prices. The problem is not with the crude oil supply. The problem is with refineries that are not working due to hurricane damage. This will take weeks to months to repair. We don't have ANY spare refinery capacity. None. Zip. Zilch.

So your proposed remedy is, in fact, not any degree of remedy. It would not help at all. Supply and demand, remember. Economy 101?

And, no, I wouldn't want to BeLikeTrey. Apparently you don't read the newspaper.

 

[BeLikeTrey]

second guess the govt ONLY on the 2nd amendment...

Trust them on everything else... And Bush even admitted mistakes were made. But heaven forbid anyone here says so. Lets try and talk down to those who disagree and tell them how economics works. Since we all have degrees in that... (to all our insulting ECO 101 people, and there are a few) Yeah like our society actually is purely capitolistic. tell me another one please. :banghead:

I think I've found out what I needed to know here.