Nanny Bloomers: We Don't Want the National Guard Keeping Order in New York City Because We Don't Want Those Extra Icky Guns

A few days ago Kathleen Parker, alleged by the media to be conservative-leaning and alleged by me to be an idiot, cooed at the prospect of Michael Bloomberg running for president.

If nothing else, this year has brought us the end of the long-threatened Michael Bloomberg presidential candidacy, and thankfully (hopefully!) the last term of Mayor for Life.

Mayor Bloomberg has snubbed Borough President Markowitz’s impassioned plea to bring the National Guard to Hurricane Sandy-scarred Brooklyn — arguing that approving the Beep’s request would be a waste of federal manpower and turn the borough into a police state.

“We don’t need it,” Mayor Bloomberg said on Wednesday during a press update on the city’s ongoing Hurricane Sandy cleanup. “The NYPD is the only people we want on the street with guns.”

You know what's worse than highly-trained, highly-disciplined men with guns? Looters and criminals of opportunity, and citizens getting panicky about looters and criminals of opportunity.

When night falls in the Rockaways, the hoods come out.

Ever since Sandy strafed the Queens peninsula and tore up the boardwalk, it’s become an often lawless place where cops are even scarcer than electrical power and food. Locals say they are arming themselves with guns, baseball bats, booby traps — even a bow and arrow — to defend against looters.

...

“We booby-trapped our door and keep a baseball bat beside our bed,” said Danielle Harris, 34, rummaging through donated supplies as children rode scooters along half-block chunk of the boardwalk that had marooned into the middle of Beach 91st St.

“We heard gunshots for three nights in a row,” said Harris, who believed they came from the nearby housing projects.

Carly Ruggieri, 27, who lives in water-damaged house on the block, said she barricades her door with a bed frame. “There have been people in power department uniforms knocking on doors and asking if they’re okay, but at midnight.”

And another local surfer said he has knives, a machete and a bow and arrow on the ready. Gunshots and slow-rolling cars have become a common fixture of the night since Hurricane Sandy.

“I would take a looter with a boa [sic]. If I felt threatened I would definitely use it,” said Keone Singlehurst, 42. “Its like the Wild West. A borderline lawless situation.”

I don't mind armed citizens, but panicky armed citizens often produce less-than-optimal outcomes. There might be a little less panic -- and also, a little less crime and looting -- if there were a stronger presence of order in the stricken areas.

Bloomberg is so anti-gun he's afraid of national guardsmen -- citizen-soldiers who have at least a basic-level security clearance -- toting firearms.

City-dwellers may finally be understanding what rural folks say -- when danger is seconds away, it does you little good if the police are 10-15 minutes away.

posted by Ace at 07:19 PM

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