Tom,
That was loosely based on a real event. A local activist moved to Vermont. He and his wife overheard a conversation between two cops and a woman just outside the store. She'd spotted a man in the store with a gun under his jacket and called the PD. The officers were asking if he'd threatened anyone or brandished the gun. When she said he hadn't it went something like this...
Cop: So, what's the problem then?
Woman: That man is carrying a gun!
Cop: I understand that. But was he endangering anyone?
Woman: Of course he is! HE HAS A GUN!
Cop: Nothing wrong with that.
Woman: Huh? What if he robs the store?
Cop: Let me guess, you're from California, right?
Woman: Yeah, so?
Cop: This is Vermont. Our laws make sense here.
Woman:
The main problem with people like
Henigan and
Helmke is that they refuse to believe how easily our modern society could fall into chaos.
Katrina served as a
small scale example. Another 8.0+ magnitude earthquake on the
New Madrid fault in Missouri could not only change the course of the Mississippi (again) but reduce a huge section of the central U.S. to rubble.¹ Even a high-altitude nuke could create enough
EMP to revert us back to 1910 technology levels for up to a decade.²
It doesn't even have to be that dramatic if you're located in the middle. How many local citizens were threatened by the Rodney King rioters? Florida citizens surviving hurricanes often turn into
self-directed local milita to police their neighborhoods of looters.
If they had their way, the anti-gun lobby would be responsible for the deaths of hundreds, perhaps thousands, during a period of crisis.
They have no credible answer for those people who call for "government protection" when it is unavailable.
¹
The Dec 1811 quake is estimated between 7.5 and 8.0 and was felt in NYC. Reports of church bells ringing in Boston and sidewalks cracking in D.C. were reported before the quake's location was known. New Madrid is near the Missouri/Arkansas/Tennesse border.
²
The EMP effects destroy electronic devices which have become embedded in our lives. Computers, TV's, radios, car electronics are all obvious. Non-obvious are those electronic controls on valves for water, power, sewage, rail switching and thousands of other uses. No phones, networks, power grids, no transportation, no water. We'd be living in rural 1910 conditions for at least a year as new equipment was built and deployed. Levels of medical care drop dramatically (no CAT/MRI, slow lab tests) and drugs are harder to obtain.
