Should Looters Be Shot On Sight?
By Dave Gibson
In September 1989, Hurricane Hugo, a
Category 4 storm, made landfall in South Carolina with wind gusts clocked as
high as 120 mph. The storm left a wake of destruction along the state’s
beachfront and to the so-called Low Country areas, leaving hundreds of
thousands without power, and either
completely destroying or inflicting major damage to more than 20,000 single
family homes throughout the state.
As part of preparing for the storm,
then-Gov.
Carroll Campbell Jr. issued a ‘shoot-on-sight’ order to the South Carolina
National Guard.
A few days after the storm had
passed, Mary T. Schmich, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, wrote about the
devastation to the area and the heart wrenching scene, as “7,000 residents of
the Isle of Palms and neighboring Sullivans Island were unable to return to
their houses,” as the connecting bridge from the mainland was badly damaged,
and too dangerous to cross.
Schmich wrote:
…they were only vaguely consoled by the news that martial law had been declared on the island to deter looters.
The National Guard are firing
shots in front of boats to keep them from docking…And they`re shooting at
looters.
Well, guess what?
There was little to no looting in
the aftermath of the almost Biblical hurricane, though structures were left
opened with riches for the taking.
The ‘shoot-on-sight’ order
worked.
Now, fast forward 25 years to
Ferguson, MO, and a few months later to Baltimore, MD…
Because the police had been given
orders in both cities to basically stand down, hundreds of businesses were both
looted and destroyed by fires. Of course, many of those shops will never
re-open, as was the case after the wholesale sacking of South Central Los
Angeles, after the ‘Rodney King Riots’ in 1992.
If we continue to tolerate such
brazen, barbaric behavior…we will eventually see many of our cities become
uninhabitable. As it stands…the inmates are running the asylum.
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