New Orleans Enjoying Self-Funded Surge

The Congress may have qualms over supplying the troops in Iraq, but New Orleans taxpayers are self-funding a surge of their own in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Note that this is following a rise in crime, not preceding it.

Sixty-four-year-old Vivian Westerman rode out Hurricane Katrina in her 19th-century house. So terrible was the experience that she wanted two things before the 2006 season arrived: a backup power source and a gun. "I got a 6,000-watt generator and the cutest little Smith & Wesson, snub-nose .38 you ever saw," she boasted. "I've never been more confident." People across New Orleans are arming themselves - not only against the possibility of another storm bringing anarchy, but against the violence that has engulfed the metropolitan area in the 19 months since Katrina, making New Orleans the nation's murder capital.

The number of permits issued to carry concealed weapons is running twice as high as it was before Katrina - this, in a city with only about half its pre-storm population of around 450,000. Attendance at firearms classes and hours logged at shooting ranges also are up, according to the gun industry.

Westerman, an artist who lives in the city's Algiers neighborhood, is prepared to use deadly force.

"I'm a marksman now. I know what I'm doing," she said. "There are a lot of us. The girl next door is a crack shot."

Comments

[Jeff]

It's a quagmire. Why are we even there? I mean, its a city below sea level, next to the sea. As Carlos Mencia put it, "It's like a bowl of soup, except the soup is on the OUTSIDE."

I think we should have a phased redeployment of New Orleans starting now, ending by Sept. '08 at latest. Our citizens, children and elderly should not be put in such a terrible situation.

[Fred Beloit]

Guns needed in a city governed of, by, and for liberals? Why, yyy?

[Fred Beloit]

Next thing you know, there will be reports that the workers paradise, Chicago, has some people who commit crimes living there. "The potential victims may want to defend themselves, but the Dems will have none of it", said the Duck.

[JammieWearingFool]

None of this would be happening if they had bullet control.

Still, let's face it, New Orleans was a cesspool pre-Katrina.

[Buzzy]

Maybe we'll see a timetable for withdrawl from New Orleans with the next supplemental funding bill.

[templar knight]

Uh, Jeff, we already had a phased redeployment. Many of us in Texas would like to have a phased re-redeployment back the hell to NO for most of them deployed into Texas. And I hear that is also true about a number of other places these people ended up. These people have caused the crime rates of places like Houston to go way up. I say, put them back in the soup.

[nova]

NOLA was in a swamp before and it is in a swamp now.
Corps of Engineers screwed up the levee system starting in 1965. Why did the city survive hurricane Betsy but not Katrina? Ask MRGO and the Corps of Engineers. And the lousy oversight of the Corps of Engineers. Total failure all the way from local to state to federal. Time to move. The city is sinking. The wetlands are gone. Why live in a swamp?

[bloodrage bob]

couldn't agree more with what nova said. assuming, of course, that by saying "swamp", nova meant "shithole".

which of course NO has been for quite some time now, long before katrina came along and made it official. like sodom & gomorrah, only scummier. (assuming those cities were also famous for t-shirt vendors & 'show us yer tits'-bellowing sophisticates.)

why would anyone stay, is what i can't figure. a testament to the human tendencies towards consistency, inertia, and habit, i guess.

[Buzzy]

The biggest screw up with the NOLA levees was letting the New Orleans Levee Board take charge of any of them. None of the Corps levees failed but dispite millions of dollars in Federal money the Levee Board is still not making needed upgrades on the lake side that they are responsible for.

[seekeronos]

As with any nation that turns its way away from God, the USA may well be facing many wrathful judgments from the Creator.

Now is the time for all Christians to intercede in prayer before the Lord for this land, and for Him to raise up for us leaders after His own heart; now is the time for men to repent, turn from their sself-gratifying ways, and seek the face of the Lord.

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

(2 Chronicles 7:14, KJV)

[Phoenix]

Jammie,

This struck me. "None of this would be happening if they had bullet control."

Is that like, you know, a cool thing where the bullet goes out of the gun and then turns around and comes back and shoots the shooter?

Way to go. What a crime deterrent. Meta-Roulette? :)

[Hard Right]

The Corps of Engineers was at the mercy of NOLA and the environmentalists. Then we wonder why the overall leveee system was screwed up?

[Phoenix]

HR,

I read a great article years ago about how the enviromentalists screwed up the attempts to build the levees so that they'd *work*. It seems odd that you reminded me of it because I know I read the article long before enviromentalism became the force it is today. That is, if I'd just read it, I'd probably have commented on it, but I know it was years ago. Come to think of it, it was an article about the Corps of Engineers and all the great work they do and I don't think they used the word 'environmentalists'. The levees in New Orleans were an example they used of people fostering stupid ideas getting in the way of them doing what had to be done. They had several other examples, but New Orleans was the biggest. As well, the article was not about complaining but rather to demonstrate the force of good the Corps is.