[CamB]

Not the place for a gun debate - I agree. Happy to leave it.

Hell, if I was in NO, I'd probably want a gun right now: CNN tells me they're shooting - unprovoked - at police on top of the police station.

I note CNN this morning that the National Guard is going in with orders to "shoot to kill" (whatever that means once the military lawyers have finished defining it to the nth degree), so I guess you're getting your wish Paul.

I've thought more about my last post, and read some of the replies, and watched tv a little. I think the problem is that the majority of people likely to descend into anarchy are included in the people who stayed behind - whether through lack of transport or means to leave, a desire to loot (surely a minority - it has to largely be opportunist at least when it began), or because leaving might expose them to unwanted attention to the authorities. THe city might well have become a kind of time bomb, and the scale of the hurricane's impact has set it off...

Just as an aside, I wonder to what extent drug addictions are affecting people's behaviour both in the streets and in the Superdome.

Actually, further thinking. I wonder how much of the looting is driven by people who have lost everything and are uninsured (I'm not condoning it - trying to understand). I can't believe it is all career criminals.