Helene and the totalitarian urge

Original article here

The totalitarian urge is strong. Our founders knew this. Before Hurricane Helene hit, the Okeechobee was headed. FL Police Department Donald Hagan issued a statement that, among other things, banned the sale of guns and ammunition and limited gun ownership to police and military personnel. Fortunately, the Americans were furious, Hagan went into hiding, and the police and city officials quickly returned. The ban was apparently never enforced. It is suspected that sales of weapons and ammunition have increased, to figuratively spit in Hagans’ eyes. Americans are like that.

Image: X Screenshot

Why would anyone think of banning guns during a natural disaster? For public safety? Denying the public the means to protect themselves when every public institution has gone bankrupt makes it safer? Who thinks that way? Government officials are too full of themselves and too impressed with their own power. Let the all-knowing, all-powerful, magnanimous government handle it, even if they can’t and won’t, as in Washington County, Tennessee:

Image: Screenshot from Washington County Sheriff’s Office. Public domain.

Eight migrant men are accused of looting American homes in flood-ravaged Washington County, Tennessee, after Hurricane Helene, which left at least 128 people dead in Appalachia and hundreds more missing. (skip)

Some of the vacant homes the migrants allegedly looted were “barely standing,” Washington County officials said, as a result of deadly flooding from Hurricane Helene.

The article notes that they are in America on a temporary work visa and “could be eligible for arrest and deportation by federal immigration agents.” Sure, that will happen. Our “federal immigration agents” are busy allowing unidentified murderers, rapists and pedophiles into the country. Are they just going to deport looters?

To be frank, our immigration enforcement officers are despondent at being relegated to mere clerks forced to allow virtually anyone into the country. They are sworn to uphold the law and are being forced to break it by the Harris/Biden administration. But Florida Governor Ron DeSantis understands the purpose of the Second Amendment and its application:

You never know what’s behind that door when you break into someone’s house and try to loot. These are people who will be able to defend themselves and their families,” the governor added. “We’re going to at least hold you accountable from a law enforcement perspective, and it could be even worse depending on what’s behind that door.”

Unfortunately, we live in a Twilight Zone where, especially in blue states, citizens are more likely to be prosecuted than the predators who force them to shoot. Even if a hurricane immediately reduces Americans to a state of nature, they cannot be assured that the government will not arrest them for legitimately protecting their lives and property from bands of savage looters. As shocked Americans know, this state of nature exists in blue states where gangs, sometimes numbering in the hundreds, loot jewelry and other stores in broad daylight.

Guards and police are just waiting to know if they use violence against criminals, and worse, if they shoot one, they are in jail and ruined, while looters can never see the inside of a cell. With every theft, the foundations of civilization are swept away.

What should citizens do, whose lives have been overthrown, who stand and try to protect the few possessions they have left? There is no communication, no water, little or no food. The roads and bridges are out of order, and even if they could call the police, the police don’t come. The minutes that would normally be needed for a police response – under ideal circumstances – now take days, even weeks. During Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, some police officers became looters, while others seized weapons from citizens.

But why? What public safety purpose could that possibly serve? One of the real, but almost never mentioned, functions of the criminal justice system is to protect criminals from normal Americans. When left alone, abandoned by the government chosen to serve them, normal Americans will tend to mete out a rather harsh and final form of justice.

Normally, lethal force cannot be used to protect property, but when every element of society has collapsed and life has been reduced to the survival of the most violent and ruthless, when the police do not come and have demonstrably turned against them, What choice do decent Americans have?

In March 2024, I wrote Devolving to a 3S society, noting that regression is always a choice. When the rule of law is given up for social justice, when merit is given up for diversity, entitlement, resentment and lawlessness reign. Left alone against the crowd, the law-abiding have no recourse but to 3S: shoot, shovel and remain silent. Having been deprived of the Second Amendment by the Twilight Zone government, they will inevitably end up on the wrong end of the shovel.

It’s a reality that the citizens of Okeechobee have faced, as everyone should. Everyone needs to make sure this never happens to America.

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearms instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.