From: mporter@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Matthew D Porter)
Subject: Journalist turns pro-gun? - ARTICLE
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 02:28:02 GMT

       This is reprinted WITHOUT permission from the Columbus (Oh.)
Dispatch.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

            "Hurricane victims find that guns deter looters"
        Myriam Marquez - writer for The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel.

       My friend in Miami was despondent.  She had survived Hurricane
Andrew, but her daughter's home in nearby Cutler Ridge was a soaked,
roofless shell.
       Thankfully, her daughter's family had stayed with my friend,
whose apartment survived relatively unscathed because it was a few miles
north of Andrew's savage eye.
       But it was the day after Andrew's wrath that brought home to my
friend the immensity of this disaster and the ugliness of opportunists'
souls.
       My friend and her family had gone into the Cutler Ridge area as
soon as it was possible to drive there to check on the house.  They
found several young men rummanging through what was left.
       "I was so mad.  If I had had a gun, I think I would have used it
-- at least shot it up in the air to scare them away," she told me
Wednesday night when I finally got through to her on the phone.
       "Well, what if they had guns, too?"  I asked.  "Someone could end
up dead, and . . ."
       "You don't understand.  It's like the Wild West over there," she
cut in.  "People are sleeping out inthe open just to protect whatever's
left until they can get help to haul the stuff out."
       Fortunately, the looters ran away when they saw a police car
drive by.
       My friend's call to arms shocked me.  She has always been a
laid-back, peace-and-love type.
       But when the going gets tough, it seems that even softies like my
friend get tough.
       What else can you do in a situation in which your oldest child's
calm suburban life (albeit "calm" by Miami standards) has been turned
into a lawless frontier?
       When the Los Angeles riots erupted, gun shops were doing brisk
business for weeks afterward.
       People were afraid that if there were more riots, they would need
weapons to defend themselves and their homes from the mobs.  They had
seen how some of the Korean-American business owners had managed to save
some of their life's work from the rioters by staying on guard and
shooting on sight.
       Dade County (greater Miami) also has a waiting period for buying
handguns, but it's only for three days, as aloowed by state law.
       I've written about why waiting periods can save lives, and I've
called for mandatory training classes before allowing buyers to take
their guns home.  I've also written about the futility of the national
seven-day waiting period in the Brady Bill unless all the loopholes in
it are closed.
       But now all of these safeguards against gun abuse seem useless to
me.
       I hate to think in this uncivilized way.
       I would hope that in a situation like the one my friend's family
is facing, I would be able to rise above the barbarism around me and
take my kids away from it all.
       Of course, it's easy for me to say this from my air-conditioned
office.  How I would react if I had survived a hurricane of Andrew's
magnitude is another matter.
       You can't apply civilized rhetoric when you're in survival mode.
You can't apply common-sense living in 90-plus-degree heat, without
electricity and running out of water and food in a town where guns are

commonplace.
       That's what's so dangerous about South Florida's devastation.
Nerves are shot, tempers are high, and thousands of decent, hard-working
people are armed and ready to protect what few material things are left
of their lives.  Things are bound to get crazier.
       I grew up with guns.  I respect them.
       But many years ago, I decided I didn't want guns in my home
because I was sick of the stories about kids accidentally shot dead in
their own houses.
       Now I'm not so sure whether not owning a gun is as dangerous as
owning one.
       When the going gets tough, even softies like me start talking
tough.
-- 
 Matthew D Porter       (mporter@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)

     "Arrogance and Ignorance go in hand . . . "
          -Metallica (Holier Than Thou)