http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1805630/posts
"Man hugs armed robber (Africa)"
News24 ^ | March 23, 2007 | Staff
Posted on 03/23/2007 8:59:15 AM PDT by DaveLoneRanger
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Pretoria - A man who caught a young armed robber who had just burgled his home asked him if he knew Jesus, forgave him and prayed for him.
Myndert Bloem from Erasmuskloof in the eastern parts of Pretoria said he ran after two armed robbers and hugged one of them after catching him, and told him about Jesus.
Bloem's domestic worker, Esther Makgoba, was meanwhile lying bleeding in front of the house after one of the two had stabbed her with a knife. She was being treated in Kloof Hospital.
Makgoba and Bertha Pretorius, Bloem's mother-in-law, were overpowered in their house on Thursday morning."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1805717/posts
"New Orleans residents arming themselves"
fortwayne.com ^ | 03/23/07 | MARY FOSTER
Posted on 03/23/2007 11:48:34 AM PDT by Ellesu
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "NEW ORLEANS - Sixty-four-year-old Vivian Westerman rode out Hurricane Katrina in her 19th-century house. So terrible was the experience that she wanted two things before the 2006 season arrived: a backup power source and a gun.
"I got a 6,000-watt generator and the cutest little Smith & Wesson, snub-nose .38 you ever saw," she boasted. "I've never been more confident."
People across New Orleans are arming themselves - not only against the possibility of another storm bringing anarchy, but against the violence that has engulfed the metropolitan area in the 19 months since Katrina, making New Orleans the nation's murder capital.
The number of permits issued to carry concealed weapons is running twice as high as it was before Katrina - this, in a city with only about half its pre-storm population of around 450,000. Attendance at firearms classes and hours logged at shooting ranges also are up, according to the gun industry.
Gun dealers who saw sales shoot up during the chaotic few months after Katrina say that sales are still brisk, and that the customers are a cross-section of the population - doctors, lawyers, bankers, artists, laborers, stay-at-home moms.
"People are in fear of their lives. They're looking for ways to feel safe again," said Mike Roniger, manager of Gretna Gunworks in Jefferson Parish.
Citizens, the tourism industry, police and politicians officials have been alarmed by the wave of killings in New Orleans, with 162 in 2006 and 37 so far this year. A Tulane University study put the city's 2006 homicide rate at 96 slayings per 100,000 people, the highest in the nation.
National Guardsmen and state police are patrolling the streets of New Orleans. In neighboring Jefferson Parish, which posted a record 66 homicides in 2006, the sheriff sent armored vehicles to protect high-crime neighborhoods.
In New Orleans, police have accused the district attorney of failing to prosecute many suspects. Prosecutors have accused the police of not bringing them solid cases.
Some people are losing faith in the system to protect them.
Earnest Johnson, a 37-year-old chef who lives in Kenner, bought his first gun recently and visits a shooting range regularly. "Things are way worse than they used to be," he said. "You have to do something to protect yourself.""