Reactive Targets

Much has been bouncing around the web and the blogs today in regards to looters.

To shoot, or not to shoot; what was the question?

The arguments generally can be grouped under three main headings:

1.  Never.  No material thing is worth the taking of a human life.

2.  Conditionally.  If the looter is part of a life-threatening riot or profiteering from stolen essential goods.

3.  Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out.

I'm about a Category 2.5 on that scale.

For the most part, I advocate that we shoot the looters on sight. It's really not too hard to tell the difference between someone foraging a shattered grocery store merely for substenence, versus some bling-seeking punk rolling a plasma large-screen off in a stolen grocery cart.

One goes to basic survival, the other presages an even deeper breakdown in societal bounds of community. There is a thin, thin line extant between rampant looting and raging riots. Left unchecked, looting invariably leads to even more base and decadent behaviors.

Looters today were trying to break into the Children's Hospital in New Orleans, with staff and child-patients trapped therein. The New Orleans Times Picayune's own blog reports:

"Late Tuesday, Gov. Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher described a disturbing scene unfolding in uptown New Orleans, where looters were trying to break into Children's Hospital."

"Bottcher said the director of the hospital fears for the safety of the staff and the 100 kids inside the hospital. The director said the hospital is locked, but that the looters were trying to break in and had gathered outside the facility"

"The director has sought help from the police, but, due to rising flood waters, police have not been able to respond."

That is why looters need be shot on sight. They break the basic social contract which binds society and community. They make themselves but outcasts, no better than jackals tearing at the living body of the wounded-but-not-dead animal which is our society.

The following quote is attributed to George Orwell, author of the esteemed novel "1984". Not a provable attribution, but largely substantiated by Orwell's other writings. (so don't go off on some tangent 'bout whether he said it or not. I've researched it very well, thank you!)

"Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Those are indeed, true words.

I'm relatively far from the cataclyismic damage left in the wake of Katrina. But my area (Houston/Galaveston) is receiving a flood of a different sort. Tens of thousands of refugees from the storm. Nintey-nine point something percentage of which, are at least peacable, wonderfully law-abiding citizens and neighbors.

I shall welcome them with open arms, and have already contributed and acted in their behalf.

Conversely, should riotous, freely-looting jackals break forth from those masses, then I shall not be merciful in my defense of my life, my home, and those of my neighbors.

May the bloody corpses on the street lay as warnings* to those who would follow the path of the looter.

*a proven method of deterrence, which worked splendidly for the well-armed Korean merchants, perched upon the roofs and parapets of their stores during the South Central L.A. riots after the Rodney King verdict. Those that shot looters, did not suffer looting.  Go figure.

That's my $0.02 worth. Your mileage may vary.

Comments

[Jay G]

"To shoot, or not to shoot; what was the question?"

Hell no, that ain't the question.

The question, my friend, is "00 buckshot or .30-06?"

Good to have you back at full tilt, Jim. I kinda figure it's some sort of karmic payback for Kim hanging up his keyboard...

[Rivrdog]

You'll want to see the whites of their eyes, so it'll be a choice between shotguns and pistol caliber carbines, those whose caliber starts with a "4". I prefer the carbine, and have all three of mine in Condition One. They are not all in one place, however. Like the Iraqi Jihadi, I have learned of the value of weapons caches....

Who said "learn from thy enemy?"

[Tammy]

My Opinon probley wont count as much , I belive all looters should be arrested and the key thrown away , I don't think anyone should steal from anyone ,

Jim I am addicted to reading blogs it is all your Fault : )

[Moriarty]

Buckshot, most of the time. '06 can overpenetrate, risking harm to innocent bystanders a couple of blocks away. You usually have to get close to loot, negating the rifle's distance advantage.

Besides, you may get lucky and wing more than one of them with a single charge from The Tube. With a Garand you have to get them to line up just so....

If they're armed, I'll take an '06, though, and make range work for me.

Looters have stopped behaving like a civilized human beings and have turned into a pack of feral, predatory animals who will kill you as easily as look at you. You can't reason with a limbic system. You can only shut it down.

Bastards.

[Steve]

You echo my sentiments exactly, Jim. The wife and I were talking about that last night, and I was of the opinion that looting for food was one thing (you gotta eat, it's going to go bad if someone doesn't use it, etc.); looting for personal gain is a shootin' offense. Only choice I see is: up close and personal, or long range?

[james old guy]

I am willing to bet on a sharp rise in crime in Houston area in the next few weeks.

[Greg Botello]

What would you do? Faced with hunger, disease, and even death, would you leave an IOU at the Wal-Mart? Would you let your family die, because the ATM wasn’t working? Would you break it open and help yourself to the cash? Would you take advantage?

The Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin ordered virtually the entire police force to abandon search-and-rescue efforts and stop looters. Why? The answer is - Authorities can not get to everyone in New Orleans and many people will die as a result. The excuse will be – Due to looters, we couldn’t get to everyone.

Wal-Mart is insured. The items that are being looted most likely will not be able to be sold anyway and will more than likely be discarded during the clean-up.

Let them LOOT, Let THEM LOOT, LET THEM LOOT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rescue the people on rooftops.

A well known national radio talk show host, Glenn Beck has called for the killing of looters. Why, because they are taking advantage of this tragedy. With that logic, I guess the National Guard should kill gas station owners that are raising gas prices, as much as an increase of $2.00 in one day, that gas was already in the ground, ready to be pumped! Advantage, who is taking advantage? Who is worst, the looter with a Wal-mart cart or the looter in a $2,000 Brooks Brother’s suit on the 40th floor of an office building in downtown Houston or the traders on Wall Street, playing on investors fears?

Greg Botello
WWW.POLIKAKA.COM

[Moriarty]

Congratulations, Jim!

Your site has succeeded in attracting the cream of halfwitted trolls. (You know, the kind who attempt to shore up their harebrained arguments WITH CAPITAL LETTERS AND LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

This is good news, really. It shows you're having an impact.

Good on ya'!

[Eugene S]

Yeah, people too stupid to be prepared have a RIGHT to supplies, is that it? The people, on the other hand, who did stock up on supplies have an obligation to give them out? Bullshit.
If you are a looter, you deserve no sympathy. You chose to forgo civil behaviour, and therefore any sympathy that people would have for you. You are scum, not human. You are no different than a wild animal, and deserve to be treated as such.
If I had a store in New Orleans and for some reason I was still there, I would give out supplies to people who asked for them because they need to survive. They are not looters, they are asking for help, and help that I realize they truly need. I wouldn't have a problem helping them out.
If someone came into my store with the opinion that you had a right to my property, and given the lack of civil law enforcement, I'd shoot you, dead, and leave your bullet-ridden corpse outside as a sign.
It's my property, and all the rights to it are mine. I am the only one who has a right to determine what happens to it. My food and water is not your food and water unless I give it to you. It's that simple.

Oh, and Greg Botello, you are far worse than the "Brooks Brothers" type you describe. That person is acting on his obligation and the real world fact that there is a shortage of gas. You, on the other hand, are a fucking commie who likes to use other people's suffering to further your communist agenda. "oh, there is suffering and bad things are happening, it must be [insert name of corporation here]." No, it is not the fault of a corporation, it is the fault of a fucking hurricane that caused billions of dollars of damage.

[Moriarty]

Forget it, Eugene...

You're trying to argue with an amoral crapweasel whose mommy didn't teach him that it's wrong to steal.

We can only hope she wasn't as derelict about potty training.

[Rivrdog]

Nice try, Polikaka. It doesn't wash. There is no right to looting, no matter what the circumstances. The right of the owner of property to that property is absolute, and is not superceded by difficulty in begging, as all these looters are used to sustenance from, whether it be begging on the streets or begging from the government.

While a child, I was introduced to Lotta Kirschmeier, a French lady who, with her child, walked from Paris, France to Marseilles, France, about 800 miles after the German invasion of France, to seek shelter from the Nazis who would have killed her and her child as they were Jews.

The sheer distance of that trek is mind-boggling to us now. If these new Orleans cretins would walk only 100 miles, they would find shelter. A person can walk 100 miles in 5 days or less. They would be supported on the way by the government.

We won't even consider those who walked on the Long March in China, over 2,000 miles.

These people of the seamy underclass of New Orleans do not deserve any respect. Never put them in the same class as historically-respected refugees fleeing from
persecution. They don't deserve it.

They deserve only to be exterminated as the vermin they are.

[Army of Dad]

Personally, I wouldn't shoot someone carrying out food, water, diapers and the like from an abandoned store. The bastards carrying out 20 pairs of designer shoes and cart loads of jewelry and electronics get shot and left as a warning.

I also wonder about those besieged hospitals and whether they had a strict no guns policy like many of them in this (North Texas) are do. If they did, well you reap what you sow. I know it is terribly sad that they are being attacked for whatever meager supplies they have left, but they also failed to take steps to protect themselves and the patients they are trying to care for. I only hope that this serves as a wake-up call to those who would strip people of weapons.

[Moriarty]

AoD,

I wouldn't shoot anyone taking anything from an abandoned store.

Let them hire their own security people - I got troubles enough.

But....endanger my family, loot my business, assault my neighbors or try to commit a violent felony in my presence and watch what happens.

[Greg Botello]

ASSUME, ASSUME !!!! Sorry, Just shoring up my harebrained argument.

First things first, I am not nor have I ever been a member of the Communist party... Come on now that was funny.

Calling me a "fucking Commie", harebrained, then attacking my long ago, dead mother, that's pretty harsh, just as harsh as the semimar callers that attack Rush on a weekly basis. Did any of you read what I said - Looting for Air Jordans is bullshit that's not what I wrote. Food, Water and supplies to survive. You you gonna pay for the items?

I carry a 9mm Firestar filled with Aguila 65GR hollow points and the closes that I come to anything Communist is my Bulgarian Makarov (95GR JHP) and the twenty or so Cuban cigars that I refuse to smoke until Castro kicks the bucket.

I could till anyone that flies off the handle and attacks me to go fuck themselves, but I won't, I could tell them to go and fuck there mothers, since mothers seam to be fair game, but I won't do that either. Instead I'll just say stop flying off the handle and think about what you are saying - use that brain which God blessed you with to exchange ideas and not to attack a man with a differnet opinion - I've voted for Republicans since 1988, Hell I even voted and worked for Beau Bolter's campaign. But I challenge any fellow Republican to look me in the eye and tell me that George Bush hasn't let you down on a few key issues.

What I'm saying is - is that everthing is not BLACK or WHITE there are shades of gray, yes there are matter that are just YES, NO, RIGHT or WRONG, but most matters in life do have some GRAY... and looting for food and water to help people - that's one of them.