Medary.com

Looting and violence in New Orleans has made a horrible, terrible situation even worse--preventing and impeding rescue operations. OpinionJournal on lawlessness in New Orleans:

One reason for the New Orleans breakdown is the size of the calamity, whose growing severity caught nearly everyone by surprise. Louisiana National Guard troops that were deployed initially for rescue and relief efforts weren't available for the more basic duties of public security. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is also geared to providing relief, not order, and only yesterday did the federal government begin to focus on the potential anarchy. Among our political leaders, only Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour seemed to appreciate the genuine risk of disorder, with his early warnings that looters would not be given the benefit of the doubt.

I'll say it once: looters should be shot on sight. No arguments, no second-guessing. You loot, you die. Ted Frank at Point of Law said it eloquently:

I fully acknowledge that shooting looters is an inappropriately disproportionate response if one views looting as mere larceny. But one doesn't shoot looters to protect property, one does so to protect order. Somebody is going to suffer unjustly when society breaks down. I don't understand why Muller thinks it preferable for the law-abiding citizens to be the cost-bearers. History has shown repeatedly that the way to stop an anarchic riot is an early display of substantial force.

Blogger R.G. Combs makes the Second Amendment argument:

I wonder how many of the honest, decent residents had firearms -- and how many of those had been persuaded to keep their weapons unloaded, locked up, and inaccessible.

One of the grave weaknesses of our culture is that most people have come to believe that it's not merely acceptable, but necessary and proper for them to completely surrender responsibility for their own safety and well-being to others. In the best of times, I believe this is foolish -- do you know what the average police response time is for a 911 call in your community? Assuming you can and do make that call when the need arises...

In the worst of times -- and this is the worst of times in New Orleans -- such helplessness and dependency can be deadly. It's not just that having a gun helps the honest, decent people stave off the predators. There's a more subtle psychological factor: Someone who owns a gun (I'm talking about the honest, decent people, not the sociopaths) accepts responsibility for her own safety and for her own responsible behavior; gun ownership both empowers and disciplines you.

It's been said before: The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting. It is about the ability to protect yourself when there is no other protection available. The bottom line is that advocating gun control is essentially saying that that something like New Orleans can't happen here because the police will always be there. Well, New Orleans proves beyond all doubt that the police won't always be there. What 'cha gonna do when they come for you?