Posted on 09/05/2005 8:24:15 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - When night falls, Charlie Hackett climbs the steps to his boarded-up window, takes down the plywood, grabs his 12-gauge shotgun and waits.
He is waiting for looters and troublemakers, for anyone thinking his neighbourhood has been abandoned like so many others across the city. Two doors down, John Carolan is doing the same on his screened-in porch, pistol by his side.
They are not about to give up their homes to the lawlessness that has engulfed New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina.
"We kind of together decided we would defend what we have here and we would stay up and defend the neighbourhood," says Hackett, a U.S. Army veteran with a snow-white beard and a business installing custom kitchens.
"I don't want to kill anybody," he says, "but I'd sure like to scare 'em."
With generators giving them power, food to last for weeks and several guns each for protection, the men are two of a scattered community holed up across the residential streets of the city's Garden District, a lush neighbourhood with many antebellum mansions.
The streets, where towering live oaks once offered cool shade, are now often impassable because of huge fallen branches and downed power lines. Lovely porches framed in wrought iron lay smashed. Many of the homes appear only slightly damaged, or even untouched.
But the neighbourhoods are stunningly empty, and so quiet that they sound like a forest.
It is a short drive but a world away from the city's downtown, where tens of thousands of hungry, thirsty and increasingly angry people waited in misery at the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center before evacuations finally began.
Here, Carolan starts his nightly watch by lighting a big fire in his barbecue pit. Hackett turns his lights on and jams a 4.5-metre wooden brace against the front door so no one can break through.
The night is "black, black, black," Hackett says. "It reminds me of when I was in Vietnam, it reminds me of Dac To."
They have not had a problem staying awake. Each night there are gunshots in the distance, sometimes people walking through, an occasional car driving by.
"Last night I had to draw down on some people," Carolan says. A car with what sounded like a crowd of drunken, partying kids came through and stopped.
"I had to come out with a flashlight in one hand, pistol in the other," he says, crossing his arms like an X. "I said: 'Who are you? Do you live here? What are you doing here?' They said, 'We're leaving."'
Hackett, who in his 50s, lives alone, with his two cats and a bunch of neighbour's pets that he is caring for. Carolan, 46, is keeping watch with his brother, wife, son, and three-year-old granddaughter.
In the first few days, they were especially fearful. Looters smashed windows and ransacked a discount store and a drugstore a few streets over. Three men came to Carolan's house asking about his generator and brandished a machete. He showed them his gun and they left.
"It was pandemonium for a couple of nights. We just felt that when they got done with the stores, they'd come to the homes," Hackett says. "When it's not easy pickings, they'll go somewhere else."
Things have gotten quieter, the men say, but not quiet.
"What do you say, I'm a survivor," John Carolan says with a laugh, thinking of the reality TV show. "Hey, give me the million bucks now."
How long can Carolan and the others hold out?
Hackett has enough gas and food for a month. Carolan says they have weeks' worth of food and bug repellent, and he will siphon gas from left-behind cars to keep his electricity going.
"Everything we have is in our homes. With the lawlessness in this town, are you going to walk away from everything you built?" Carolan says. "A lot of people think we're stupid. They say, 'Why did you stay?' I say, 'Why didn't you stay?"'
00 and 3" shells. Better have a good butt pad on that puppy.
What Is Martial Law?And is New Orleans under it?
Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1477951/posts
As far fetched as it sounds, I've read the folders are actually MORE reliable shooting the high end hollow points than good old ball ammo. Don't have the breadth of experience to say how accurate that assertion is, but IIRC I did have more issues with Western range rounds than Sabres and HydraShocks.
Thanks for the American ping!
I am from the same school. When it is time to use a weapon do so with extreme prejudice and no warning. Many people have been killed with their own weapons (including law enforcement officers) for giving a chance. If you need to use it USE IT WELL!!!
He should keep track of who, so he can reimburse them later if possible.
I've had it almost 15 years, can't remember where I got it ~ I think is was an add in one of the gun magazines or American Rifleman.
I bought this Ruger when they first came out ~ was it in the late 60's or early 70's? I have one year old Mini 14 SS Ranch model with a composite stock, nice gun.
A neighbor of mine who is watching the neighborhood and keeping the looters at bay is welcome to all the damn gas he can siphon out of my anything. And any ammunition and guns that he wishes to borrow or use in the process. Float em.
:o /
I don't recall what ammo I tried in them but I have access to all kinds. I just could not get past having jams and larger groups. I am sure I tried more then one brand and type.
Count me in your camp, Sterco. Though frankly, I'd be more likely the guy doin' the watchin'. Disasters are problematic for my family. Being around for them is a condition of employment for my wife. That leaves me with a gaggle of little old ladies to watch over. Evac is not something we've had to do yet.
00 and 3" shells. Better have a good butt pad on that puppy.
Used to drive through harvested wheat fields in the winter kicking up coyotes and nailing them with 12 Guage 00 buck. I know what you are talking about. I have had blood ooze right through the skin on my shoulder after about a box of shells. Sure wish coyotes would be worth something again. They are gettin far too damn thick around here since the do-gooders outlawed trapping them. Won't be long they will get tired of dogs and cats and grab a kid or two.
I REALLY like the unloaded rifle idea!! For years I kept my 9mm loaded with a subsonic wadcutter on top of a stack of now un-obtainable black-talon ammo.
It may take a bigger chunk our of your a$$ (wallet), but at least your shoulder will stay intact.
Besides, doesn't the thought of making 800 yrd. shots give you the warm fuzzies?
If I'm not mistaken, Golden Sabre is the same thing without the paint-job.
I wonder what our Northern Brothers are going to do is TSHTF?
I have done some "varmiting". We have about three billion prairie dogs within five miles of my house. I have a belgium mauser action custom 25-06 that is very up to the task of making a lot of ranchers happy. Very expensive sport unless you reload your own. I have many friends who do. Hell we have red-foxes (which we tolerate) less than two blocks away from our house. Everyone kind of gets a kick out of the kits. I have heard they are "hell on cats". That is not my problem since I don't have any cats.
As a final note I have been soundly critsized as a "bastard" by liberals for shooting these "endangered prairie dogs". I just say and "they are a lot more endangered when I am shootin at em". Hedehehehe
Ping.
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