Text 12440, 160 rader
Skriven 2005-09-21 10:55:00 av FRANK SCHEIDT (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av MICHIEL VAN DER VLIST
Ärende: looting in NO.
======================
-=> Quoting Michiel Van Der Vlist to Raymond Yates <=-

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

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

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

More like *logical* reasoning, in fact ...
 
 > It's a product of the deification of the gangster culture,
 > that's seems certain.

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

We had nothing to say about it.  You should put that question to 
the New Orleans authorities.  BTW, since you seem to be so 
interested in "race" (regardless how you may define it) did you 
know that New Orleans is 2/3 *black*?   And that's a fact so even 
with warped reasoning you cannot call it racist.

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

Soldiers do what soldiers must do.
 
 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.

 MVDV> As I said, they could not have been looted if they were not there in
 MVDV> the first place.
 
And why *shouldn't* the guns have been there.  After all, theft 
is a crime and no one should commit crimes -- hurricane or *no* 
hurricane.

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

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

It never *is* reported.  Our anti-gun nuts would go ballistic 
upon seeing such reports.

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

Our constitution wisely grants us the *right* to bear arms!  We 
are a *free* society, quite unlike the repressive societies which 
seem to fear such freedom.  BTW, maybe it's because we in the 
U.S. are so accustomed to using guns that we were so much more 
effective than our allies in both World Wars.  Think about that.  
You guys *start* wars.  *We* finish them!

 MV>> My first thought was: that could not have happened if those weapons
 MV>> were not there to begin with. Over here you can not buy guns in a
 MV>> supermarket. It is extremely difficult to legally buy a gun anywhere.
 
 > However, for good or ill, they are here, and in significant numbers.

And if they *weren't* in the stores where would one go to *buy* a 
gun?

 MVDV> So maybe this disasters should make you (y'all) rethink the matter.
 
So you think guns should be available for sale some place *other* 
than in stores?  Where?

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

 MVDV> Possibly.
 
 > 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...

 MVDV> Question is, why does a society allow it to come to that?
 
Good question.  We *do* need harsher laws WRT criminal acts.

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

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

*We* live in a free society.  It's for that reason that our 
constitution guarantees us the right to have guns.  I cannot 
imagine living in a repressive nation which does *not* allow such 
freedom.  It must be depressing -- at least for those who know 
about *our* freedom.

 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.

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

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

True enough ...

 MVDV> So the people of Eastern Kentucky are polite and law abiding you say.
 MVDV> Well, so are the people of The Netherlands and here - with a very few
 MVDV> exceptions - private citizens can not legally own fire arms.
 
Give the people in the Netherlands the right to own guns and 
you'd have a more polite society there.

 > 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)

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

We all (w'all?) have nothing to do with it.

... "The oily bird gets the worm" ... Exxon slogan

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