Text 12473, 169 rader
Skriven 2005-09-21 14:24:52 av Raymond Yates (1:3613/48)
  Kommentar till text 12411 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
Ärende: looting in NO.
======================
 MV> Hello Raymond,

 MV>>>>> image is burned into my retina: that of soldiers entering
 MV>>>>> houses with assault rifles at the ready! It looked more like
 MV>>>>> an invasion than a rescue mission....

 >>>> When the "rescuees" are shooting, what is one to do?

 MV>>> Why were they shooting in the first place? And with what?

 >> Who knows the motivations of gangters and thugs, for that's
 >> what they seem to be..

 MV> You classify them as gangsters and thugs because that is what they
 MV> seem to be. And they seem to be that way because they are shooting at
 MV> people who come to rescue them. And since they are classified as
 MV> gangsters and thugs, you do not need to ask why they are shooting.

 MV> Seems like a bit of circular reasoning to me...

Perhaps, but even so I asked the question.. they were not interests in being
"resued" but in controlling their areas..

 >> It's a product of the deification of the gangster culture,
 >> that's seems certain.

 MV> If there is a gangster culture in New Orleans, why did the rest of the
 MV> USA allow it to come to that?

Because it's prevalent in the rest of the country as well, in certain
cultures..

 MV> Anyway, whatever the reasons, seeing soldiers forcible entering
 MV> houses
 MV> at gunpoint is what one has become used to see as coming from Iraq,
 MV> not from a hurricane disaster area in the USA....

 MV>>> One report I heard is that looters lifted all the handguns from
 MV>>> Sears.

 >> And Wal-Mart, both have sporting goods departments. Probably
 >> pawn shops, all the traditional stores where guns are available
 >> Not just handguns, but rifles and shotguns as well.

 MV> As I said, they could not have been looted if they were not there in
 MV> the first place.

 >> Mush less reoprted (as it does not suit the national agenda)
 >> are the people that protected their homes with guns of their own.

 MV> That indeed did not make it into the news that I saw.

 MV> But if it would, it would not have made a favorable impression either.
 MV> What society is it, where people need to defend themselves against
 MV> there own instead of that they work together to deal with a life
 MV> threatening situation?

The one that some people live in , here.. That's how it is, like it or not..

 MV>>> My first thought was: that could not have happened if those
 MV>>> weapons were not there to begin with. Over here you can not buy
 MV>>> guns in a supermarket. It is extremely difficult to legally buy
 MV>>> a gun anywhere.

 >> However, for good or ill, they are here, and in significant
 >> numbers.

 MV> So maybe this disasters should make you (y'all) rethink the matter.

Seriously? I doubt it. That would require totally changing our Constitution,
and no one's going to suggest that radical a step. A major change like that
would be fatal to an elected officials continued existance in the halls of
government.

 >> Many of the guns I expect were already in the possession of the
 >> criminal element before the flood, and were purchased illegally.

 MV> Possibly.

Much more than likely. Handguns are not sold in Sears (I checked) nor at
Walmart (ditto) Handguns in the hands of the criminal class is easily but
illegally arranged.

 >> There's quite a business in that as it happens. No criminal checks,
 >> no waiting period or other government red tape, just hook up
 >> with the local gunrunner, and you're all set...

 MV> Question is, why does a society allow it to come to that?

How do you stop it?  Crime is crime, and it's worldwide. If there's a market,
someone will fill it.

 >> I would not be surprised that the same system exists in
 >> Europe ( I know it does) but it's probably a lot less common.

 MV> I don't know. I have never attempted to buy a weapon. Legally or
 MV> illegally. TTBOMK it is impossible for me to legally obtain and own a
 MV> gun. I have no idea how difficult it would be to get one on the black
 MV> market. I would not know where to start, so I put it in the "not so
 MV> easy" category. But obviously it is not impossible. We have criminals
 MV> here too and some of them have weapons, which they surely did not
 MV> obtain legally.


Too true, based on my previous knowledge of gunrunning in Europe many years
agoo.

 MV>>> An armed society is a polite society? Didn't look that way...

 >> A true armed society is. I lived for a time in Eastern
 >> Kentucky, where everyone had the ability to be legally armed.
 >> It had a low crime rate and people were pointedly polite.

 MV> Maybe you are making the old mistake of assuming that a correlation
 MV> implies a causal relation.

No assumption necessary. It was standard procedure for a person visiting
someone's home to beep the horn before getting out of the car, wait a few
moment, /then/ get out of the car, to give the homeowner time to recognise who
it was. TThe reaso is stated above and it was told to me directly. Definitely
a causal relation..

 MV> But it need not be so. If there is a causal effect, the relation may
 MV> be the other way around, or it may be that the cause is a common
 MV> factor. There can be a dozen explanations of a correlation without
 MV> there being a cause/effect relation between A and B.

This one though, was pretty direct.

 MV> So the people of Eastern Kentucky are polite and law abiding you say.
 MV> Well, so are the people of The Netherlands and here - with a very few
 MV> exceptions - private citizens can not legally own fire arms.

And yet the systems differ so widely. OTOH the time when the Netherlads was a
wild and unsettled place was in it's distant past. Here it was really not all
that long ago that firearms were for protection and hunting for food..

 >> What differentiates here is that NO was (and is) on the verge
 >> of lawlessness in the first place,as it has had the reputation of
 >> being one of the most corrupt cities in the nation, even including
 >> NYC and Chicago. That rot extends into the Police department
 >> (perenially under federal examination for graft and fraud) and
 >> into the political system (millions of federal grant dollars
 >> that vanished into thin air with no reciepts)

 MV> That explains - in part - the images of soldiers entering houses at
 MV> gunpoint. It does not explain why y'all let it come to that in the
 MV> first place.

Images of self-defense. and "let" is not exactly the word I would choose to
use. You know gun laws in cities were started somewhere around the 18-60's or
so, laws against concealed carry, and all that. before then it was common to
see people in the streets of the city with all manner of weapons. ISTR that
when guns were prohibited, the problem of crime only got worse. People could
not defend themselves as they should be able to do.

Besides it a natural progression of the itmes, I think. a carryover from the
days when gentlemen were required to wear swords, and have the ability to use
them. Louisiana was the last area of the country to ban dueling.. A tradition
brought over from France..

 >> Hope you had a good vacation, and welcome back !

 MV> We had a nice holiday, thank you.

Thats' always a good thing..

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 * Origin: Ray's Rocket Shop - Out to Launch (1:3613/48)