Guns and SUVs

AT first we were to understand that the looting in the wake of Hurricane Katrina consisted of grandmothers gathering bread and peanut butter for their hungry families. Certainly most of the absentee store owners would have contributed such basic necessities freely. However, seeing and hearing of the looting of jewelry and expensive electrical equipment in an American city with no hope of electric power for months to come, is heartbreaking.

Peggy Noonan of Opinion Journal writes "I hope the looters are shot":

As for the tragic piggism that is taking place on the streets of New Orleans, it is not unbelievable but it is unforgivable, and I hope the looters are shot. A hurricane cannot rob a great city of its spirit, but a vicious citizenry can. A bad time with Mother Nature can leave you digging out for a long time, but a bad turn in human behavior frays and tears all the ties that truly bind human being--trust, confidence, mutual regard, belief in the essential goodness of one's fellow citizens.

Some farsighted residents have generators and they too became targets of the lawless.

The New York Times: John Carolan was sitting on his porch in the thick, humid darkness just before midnight Tuesday when three or four young men, one with a knife and another with a machete, stopped in front of his fence and pointed to the generator humming in the front yard, he said.

One said, "We want that generator," he recalled.

"I fired a couple of rounds over their heads with a .357 Magnum," Mr. Carolan recounted Wednesday. "They scattered."

He smiled and added, "You've heard of law west of the Pecos. This is law west of Canal Street."

Shannon Love at Chicago Boyz explains to Europeans and Blue State America how this natural disaster explains why it is that Americans love their guns and SUVs.