Hurricane Katrina’s ImpactAlso Touches Gun Community
September 20, 2005

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

Hurricane Katrina may have taught American citizens another bitter lesson like the one delivered by the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

The government can’t protect everyone and may have trouble protecting anyone. In many cases the government—local, state and federal—may not even be able to protect itself. I’m not talking about the political and media blame game campaign largely targeted against the Bush Administration, but willing to accuse just about anyone in sight of callousness and racism. I’m talking about governments which have been taken over largely by lint-picking lawyers and miserly insurance companies to the point that officials are afraid of making decisions when split-seconds count.

I’m willing to concede that a lot of blame can be spread from local to federal level, but I don’t want to dwell on that in this column. We’ll all have time to weigh the evidence of general incompetence later.

You Are Responsible
But the main lesson to be learned is that stuff happens. Most Americans have come to believe that government is there to serve and protect them—and to pick them up and dust them off when they fall. As the people of the Gulf States have learned, just as people in other parts of the country which have experienced disastrous events of natural or man-made nature in the past, individuals must look to their own survival.

When a disaster happens, you are responsible for your own survival. Once you’re reasonably sure of your own continued existence, you can help others. As the airline attendants tell you in case of loss of cabin pressure, put your own oxygen mask on first before you try to help children or other people.

The rule is simple: If you don’t look to your own survival first, you won’t be able to help anyone else—loved ones or strangers.

Having a gun and enough ammunition for it available is a number one priority. Many Americans have learned this lesson the hard way. This may be one important reason why most of the gun control agenda hasn’t enjoyed much traction since 9-11. Sure there were other similar lessons delivered by other hurricanes like Hugo and Andrew and social upheavals such as the Los Angeles riots of recent vintage. But those were largely regional lessons. The 9-11 attacks delivered a national message.

But having a gun and ammo is not the only consideration. Anyone, even the poorest in New Orleans who had no way to evacuate the city and for whom no buses were provided by the city, should have a kit bag of some sort ready to go on a moment’s notice that includes such basic things as some drinking water, some food or candy bars, some cash (no checks or credit cards), a copy of your ID, a flashlight and extra batteries, a good knife, simple first aide supplies, any prescription medicine you must take daily, and a change of clothes, especially socks. There are lots of other useful niceties if you have them: a cell phone and a list of important contact numbers, a small portable radio, extra batteries, a multi-tool, etc.

To be useful in emergencies, this kit as well as the gun and ammo should be ready to be scooped up in seconds as you go out the door.

Like insurance, you may resent having to have such an emergency kit available, but you’ll be glad it was there when you need it.

No one can predict in advance how widespread a disaster can be. Just as some folks underestimated the dangers of Katrina, almost any event has widespread effects. Electricity is one of the first things to go. Phone service is likely to go out almost as swiftly as the lights. Then anything that works on either electrical or telephone lines is gone. That not only means your phone, lights and computers, but the ones at the banks, ATM machines, and gas pumps and water pumps, as anyone with a sump pump has learned. Heating and air condition systems don’t work, and so on.

Mail Interruptions
As we discovered recently while thinking of the plight of friends and relatives in the Gulf States, even the mails may not work.

We received notice on Sept. 6 that mail service in many areas of Mississippi and Louisiana were chancy at best, and totally suspended in others. In fact the US Postal Service is not accepting Standard mail (letters and flats) and periodicals for delivery in eight ZIP code areas identified by the first three numbers in the ZIP code. The affected ZIP codes are 369, 393, 394, 395 and 396 in Mississippi and 700-702, 793 and 604 in Louisiana.

The labels for this issue of Gun Week were already prepared before we received the Post Office notice. However, Gun Week and the Second Amendment Foundation immediately put a stop run order on all of the subscribers and members in the affected ZIP codes. There is no sense trying to mail issues or correspondence to anyone in those areas until the Post Office will actually accept the mail and try to deliver it.

When postal service to those readers resumes, we will lift the stop order and extend subscriptions automatically for the number of issues which were missed.

Sandwiched between the media stories that focus on the death toll and the blame game, there are those which highlight a variety of survival practices of the people in the Gulf States.

Some of them, even in the anti-gun New York Times, report on the people who are armed for their own survival. Some, like at least one from Associated Press, talk about how armed residents of New Orleans, for example, not only protect themselves and their property, but that of their neighbors as well.

Of course, some anti-gun papers, such as The Daily News in New York City, seem to find anti-gun lessons in this continuing story, focusing on the armed criminals. But even CNN is willing to show volunteer medical personnel who turn up to help others with a Glock in a holster at their belt.

Yes, in a disaster of the proportions of the one in New Orleans and neighboring areas, one learns quickly that even the Good Samaritan must be armed.

Gun People Volunteer
As reported in the Sept. 9 edition of the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s weekly Bullet Points, there are some good stories coming out of the Gulf States and they include gun people.

For instance, amid the devastation wrought by both nature and man in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, there have appeared stories of people’s goodness. Among them is the report in The Baton Rouge Advocate of a caravan of East Baton Rouge, LA, deputies and volunteers who set out to save elderly and infirm citizens of New Orleans.

At least five such missions have been undertaken, and among the volunteers has been Richard Lipsey, chairman of Lipsey’s Inc., a major wholesale distributor of firearms based in Baton Rouge. The Advocate article reports on the many elderly Jewish citizens of New Orleans who have been targeted for rescue.

“It’s a nice report,” said Lipsey, “but it left out mentioning the 15 nuns one of our teams got out, as well as sundry other folks. It’s working, slowly but surely. Our team has picked up people, cats, dogs, computers and five Torah scrolls today.”

To which I would add that many of the policemen, firemen, National Guardsmen and others working to help the people of the affected areas are gunowners, members of the Second Amendment Foundation or other gun group, or Gun Week subscribers. We appreciate their dedication and we urge others to help financially or in any other way they can.
Return to Archive Index