When Law and Order Breaks Down

Have you ever thought about what you would do if law and order broke down in your city or neighborhood? If armed looters were roaming up and down your street, breaking into houses, stealing whatever they could get their hands on, up to and including your kids' piggy banks? This is what people living in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina are dealing with right now. From Pascagoula, MS:

Many people stayed in their homes during the storm, including Nanette Clark, who lives several blocks behind the boulevard. She and her friend, Jayne Davis, spent the night and day of the storm moving furniture to a higher floor as water lapped, then pounded, at the front door. Some water did seep in, but the door held.

Davis was glad she stayed there; her own home was one of the St. Charles Condominiums in nearby Biloxi, where 30 people were killed by the storm surge on Monday.

On Tuesday night, Davis said, she and Clark shot at looters from the second-floor balcony of her pink house with gingerbread trim. Nobody was injured and the looters scattered, she said. Many hand-painted signs in that neighborhood warned looters that they were likely to be shot by armed homeowners.

Police said they had detained dozens of people for looting, but had to let many of them go because the city's jail, and others in surrounding communities, could not be occupied because they lacked power and plumbing. "We treat each one on a case-by-case basis," Ferguson said Wednesday. Most of the looters, he said, "are the unusual clientele we have even when there isn't a storm."

It has become quite fashionable in our generally safe society to label those who like to shoot or who support our right to keep and bear arms as "gun nuts." I have to confess. I am one of those gun nuts. I became a serious supporter of the second amendment after Hurricane Andrew when I heard about the looting in south Florida.

We did not add guns to our household at that time; we had small children and purchasing a gun would obligate us to learn how to use it safely and time was an issue. So we kept putting it off.

Then, in 2000, my dad had a stroke. When he started talking about killing himself, I took possession of his gun. Now we had to do something - I was scared of guns, frankly, and had no idea what to do with it. Fortunately, we have a friend who is a certified NRA instructor. We now know how to handle guns safely and enjoy target shooting. We also have a way to defend ourselves and our property if worse comes to worse.

I hope it never comes to that. I hope I never have to fire a weapon in defense of my family or myself. But I know that I would regret it if I had never taken the time to be prepared.

Oh, and I really enjoy shooting! And the smell of gunpowder. Go figure.

---Katie