Why do we need the 2nd Amendment? September 1st, 2005
Surviving a disaster like Katrina is one damn good reason to have firearms at your disposal. Here is just one of what I’m sure are many stories unfolding across the gulf coast area:
Managers at a nursing home were prepared to cope with the power outages and had enough food for days, but then the looting began. The home’s bus driver was forced to surrender the vehicle to carjackers.
Bands of people drove by the nursing home, shouting to residents, “Get out!” Eighty residents, most of them in wheelchairs, were being evacuated to other nursing homes in the state.
“We had enough food for 10 days,” said Peggy Hoffman, the home’s executive director. “Now we’ll have to equip our department heads with guns and teach them how to shoot.”
From New Orleans Police Ordered to Halt Looting, thanks to Michelle Malkin
Here’s a good place to keep track of your fellow citizens defending themselves.
6 Responses
ghani Says:
Wouldn’t it be more safe if nobody in New Orleans apart from the police had guns? Helicopters, police, firemen are all being shot at by angry residents, people are murdering each other over bags of ice, all because they have the weapons to hand. How is New Orleans safer because of guns?
Editor Says:
How are you going to keep the bad guys from getting guns? That’s the logical disconnect of the anti-gun movement. I’m talking about armed law-abiding citizens protecting themselves and their property. Its the lack of armed citizens that are allowing looters to rampage the city.
Remember, the cops can only come clean up after you’ve been attacked. They really can’t be everywhere all the time.
To put it another way, it isn’t the guns that cause or commit crimes. It is the lack of morality in the criminals. The availability of weapons does more to help protect the innocent than it does to further the goals of the criminals — they will commit their crimes with anything, including their own hands.
ghani Says:
A lot of the looters picked up those guns from stores once the hurricaine had hit – entire aisles of guns were cleaned out, police are trying to reach the gun stores first just to keep all the weapons out of looters’ hands.
I never understood the argument “we should have guns because the bad guys do,” because you can stop the sale of guns to a severe degree, so that very few people have them. While i agree that in many cases a lack of morality causes people to commit crimes, having a gun allows them to more easily commit a more serious crime. Here in the UK we get some stabbings, etc., but usually if people are upset they have to resort to their fists rather than a deadly weapon. Guns escalate the danger in any situation, because when things go bad, they will go very bad. A lot of people who commit gun crimes in the U.S. didn’t buy the gun wtih the intent to use it criminally, it just happened to be there when their situation changed. Like when a hurricaine hit, their homes were destroyed, their families were killed, and they start going all Lord of the Flies.
Editor Says:
So why is it that murder rates in Australia have gone up since their ban on firearms? You can never keep the bad guys from getting them. And the police can never protect everyone (actually here in the US the courts have repeatedly ruled that there is no right to have a police officer protect you).
So what are you going to do to protect yourself against someone bent on killing you or your family? “Please Stop! I’m calling the cops” will provide the criminal with some comic relief as he shoot you and rapes your wife and daughter. A .45 to the center of mass will stop him permanently.
Your assertion that ‘A lot of people who commit gun crimes in the U.S. didn’t buy the gun wtih the intent to use it criminally, it just happened to be there when their situation changed” is wrong. The vast, vast majority of gun crimes are committed by repeat offenders bent on causing mayhem. A gun is just a tool. In the U.S. we have over 300 million guns (that may be a bit low these days) and by far the majority of them are never used in a crime. As a matter of fact, more guns are used to prevent crimes than are used to commit them, by some estimates as many as 2-3 million incidents a year.
The people rioting and looting are for the most part gang member and criminals who are taking advantage of the police being distracted by having to rescue thousands of people. And the fact that today’s PC police are not willing to use the necessary force to stop looters.
ghani Says:
That quote about Australian murder rates is at best, suspect – here’s a page of information about those statistics: http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp
I forgot to mention that i’m also American, i just live in the UK – i grew up in the South, so I understand the attitudes there, including the need of guns for protection. I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree on this matter: i think people who argue that we can’t ever hope that we can minimise guns to a comtrollable level are just expecting the worst to justify their beliefs – gun control can directly prevent countless accidental crimes, crimes of passion, and crimes of opportunity. There’s never going to be a perfect solution, but I just think that people wouldn’t have to protect themselves from guns if guns weren’t available. That might not be possible for a long time in America because gun culture is so engrained there, but that’s no reason not to consider the possibility.
Editor Says:
I don’t have to protect myself from guns, they don’t do anything themselves. I have to protect myself from criminals, people who want to rob me, rape my wife and kill my family. Without guns I have no means to protect myself (don’t tell me the cops will do that, New Orleans is a perfect example of why you should own guns). To think that you are going to stop criminals from commiting crimes by banning (or controlling) guns is just wrong.
I understand human nature — that you cannot stop evil people from commiting evil, except by preparing to protect yourself.
BTW, here are some facts of my own, from – http://www.saf.org/default.asp?p=gunrights_faq
10. What is gun control like in other countries?
Different countries throughout the world provide examples of wide ranges of gun control. They range from countries like China, where no guns whatsoever are allowed to be carried by citizens, to Colombia, where the government has distributed guns to peasants so that they could defend themselves. Countries that have been closely monitored by U.S. gun rights groups are Australia, the UK, and Canada. These countries are particularly relevant to the United States due to their similarities in government and social values. These countries have imposed restrictive gun-laws that include registration, and handgun bans. Interestingly, these bans have been directly followed with spikes in the rates of breaking and entering, assaults, and other crimes.
A 1998 study by the US Department of Justice found that there were 40 percent more muggings in England, and burglary rates were almost 100 percent higher than in the United States. And, counter-intuitively, rates of crimes using handguns is on the rise. In 1999-2000, crimes using handguns were at a seven year high. Apparently, criminals were easily able to access guns, but law enforcement officers and law-abiding citizens were not allowed.
In Australia, the government banned weapons in 1996, after a publicized shooting. Immediately after the ban, armed robberies rose by 73 percent, unarmed robberies by 28 percent, kidnappings by 38 percent, assaults by 17 percent, and manslaughter by 29 percent. This was reported on the Web site of the Australian Bureau of Statistics in January, 2000.
