“There are other countries in the world prone to natural disaster, but what distinguishes the Philippines, and has made the delivery of aid even more problematic after Typhoon Haiyan, is the prevalence of guns,” Alex Spillius asserts at telegraph.co.uk. Really? “Whatever the causes of the pervasive gun culture and high murder rate, the reports of armed looting that emerged two or three days after Haiyan struck surprised no one. Even if some reports were exaggerated, the Philippines’ reputation for poor law and order preceded it.” Hmmm. “Even if some reports were exaggerated.” That kind of waffling triggers alarm bells for bloggers looking for the truth about guns in the post-Cyclone Philippines. Proof? Yes, about that . . .
The army and police have sent reinforcements to control Tacloban, the worst affected city, leading Mr Roxas to declare today that looting had been stopped.
But Jericho Petilla, the energy secretary, said of Ormoc, another city in Leyte province: “On Saturday, Ormoc city was still under control. Now there is no control.”
Ferry passengers were reportedly being held up by armed men on arrival at the port, he admitted.
On Monday, the head of the United Nations’ disaster assessment team in Tacloban said he would not deploy an aid convoy without a military escort. On Tuesday that process was still in its early stages.
Spillius is looking at the situation from afar, though the eyes of a jobbing journo working in a “civilized” country—in this case a proto-police state (the most surveilled nation on planet earth). So when Alex hears a government agent say government troops have stopped looting and restored order he’s hearing the song This is How We Do It in his head.
I’m not saying that military force doesn’t stop looting, I’m saying that in the absence of government troops, armed civilians stop looting. Effectively. And to be able to do that law-abiding citizens need to be armed. Which they are in the Philippines. So . . . result! But just you missed the hidden bias in Alex’s anti-gun reporting—in the Conservative Telegraph no less—here’s Alex again.
The difficulties in distributing aid showed how, nearly 70 years after independence, central government has yet to impose itself fully throughout the archipelago of 80 provinces and dozens of languages and consequently struggles to cope and coordinate with the disaster of the scale wrought by Typhoon Haiyan.
Yeah, that’s what we want! Central government imposing itself fully throughout the Philippines 80 provinces! Do these guys even hear what they’re saying? Nope. All the more reason we Americans need to cling to our guns and our religion like grim death. Or face same.
The problem with taking an anti-gun stance here, even if the reports are entirely correct, is that there’ll always be armed criminals–and those are the people who’ll be holding up the food convoys. Considering that after several days the people whose job it is (supposedly) to establish law and order have been unwilling or unable to do so, the only hope the citizens in the afflicted areas have of staying alive and unharmed is to be armed themselves. It really baffles me how this simple point is so hard to get across.
I believe there’s been a bit of an armed rebel presence in the Philippines since, at least, 1911? That could account for some tiny part of the lawlessness there, no?
I posted a pic of a store owner securing his property with a gun in TTAG’s FB page. But yeah. Lawless elements are amuck out there right now, taking advantage of the situation. Doesn’t help that the NPA commies decided to screw around.
Open carry as a demonstration will always hurt the modern right to keep and bear arms. It may be fun to think that open carry will normalize the sight of weapons, but it will never happen.
SCAR-4?
Am I the only one that finds FN-SCAR’s (and this lookalike) to be quite ugly? It’s like shooting a piece of 2×4 lumber.
I have held the SCAR-17 but not shot it, found it as comfortable as an AR. The wierd one is the FS2000, that thing is like trying to shoulder a small tuna.
Which one of you fools be criticizing KJW? Really? Her shooting skills are awesome and I wish I could shoot as well as her.
Shannon just ordered a burqa from taliban.com. They have next day delivery.
As my late aunt used to say, “There’s a lid for every pot.”
The 5.7×28 round is good in it’s original incarnation-defeating battlefield body armor using an armor piercing projectile, one illegal for civil sale.
As a civil defense firearm, it would suck….unless your idea of home defense is dying as the bad guy soaks up 20 rounds of your return fire to no effect.As to the inevitable citation of Fort Hood, note that even a .22LR would have done the job, handguns being quite deadly against an unarmed person.
“competition-inspired trigger”…
What, exactly, is that? I strongly suspect it is not a real competition trigger.
Can we all sue her for defamation of character?
Seems to me that the correct words would be “Violent Criminals Hinder Relief Efforts”.
But that wouldn’t fit the narrative, would it?
I get Steampunk but dang I could be more creative than that and charge less money.
There is no brass on there. No idea what you are talking about.
I think they’re actually hose clamps.
Why the wood was kludged onto it, I don’t know… The flare pistol actually looks vaguely steampunk on its own, in a Victorian/Bisley-revolverish sort of way.
I am SERIOUS! Anybody who’s been here a while seen any shit like this recently? All this crap isn’t accidental; we is being ASTROTURFED.
Meh.. it’s a good companion carbine for the FiveSeven (takes the same mags) and costs half as much as a PS90.
::Shrug::
This MULE LS3 reminds me of NASA’s effort to develop a pen that would write in zero gravity. Millions of taxpayer dollars spent doing so. In the meantime Soviet cosmonauts were issued pencils. Worked regardless of gravity/no gravity. Simple.
Why not issue an actual, living, breathing MULE ? Common sense. No costly tax dollar burden to what is left of us taxpayers. Simple.
Like it or not, open carry of rifles in urban areas has been shown to have the potential to be counter-productive to gun rights. However, open carry of handguns seems like a good way to advance the normalization of guns in daily lives at this point in time, if done by individuals going about their daily lives and not large assembled groups that may seem confrontational and intimidating to many members of the public.
The number of States where open carry is legal has been gradually expanding. There seems little logic that people living in a State that has just passed a law allowing open carry should actually not open carry. Why was the law passed then?
There are also States where open carry is legal, in theory, but where the police will find something to charge you with if you actually open carry. This type of situation requires a patient push-back over time.