When TSHTF, the Most Dangerous Looters Will Wear Uniforms
billj 04.26.17
This short guns.com bit on the post-Katrina gun confiscation serves as reminder of what every prepper should keep at the top of their mind in any serious disaster: you have as much to fear from the authorities as you do from looters and rioters.
Kajun’s Pub in New Orleans was built from scratch by JoAnn Guidos. It opened in 2004. A year later, Hurricane Katrina hit. Despite evacuation orders, JoAnn remained. She protected her pub from looters with a shotgun. That is until US Marshalls showed up with their M16s.
Yep, I followed this post-Katrina confiscation story closely, and a friend of our own Russ Chastain has written an excellent book on it.
It was Katrina that really woke me up to the dangers posed by the authorities in the aftermath of a SHTF event. It just so happened that they only took residents’ guns, and not their food and water and other supplies, but that’s only because they were well supplied, themselves, and only had orders to take guns.
Since time immemorial, armies and uniformed groups have confiscated supplies from the folks in the countryside in civil breakdown situations–wars and conflicts, but also natural disasters.
If the SHTF, especially if it’s a wide-area event and the authorities are under-resourced just like everyone else, then you had better have a plan for what to do when the men in uniform show up. Because when they roll up to your place, if they’re short anything then they’re liable to take what they need from you and yours. And if the disaster is localized, like Katrina was, then they may well have orders to confiscate your weapons.
So be aware, and prepare to treat the authorities as yet another category of threat to look out for.
