The scale of destruction in the southern California wildfires is absolutely heartbreaking, and to add insult to injury residents are also dealing with a growing number of looters who are taking advantage of the chaos and evacuation orders to plunder and pillage ahead of the flames.
Some residents, however, are choosing to take a stand; defying those evacuation orders and sticking around to make sure that thieves can't get ahold of their most precious possessions.
As KTLA reported on Wednesday, a number of armed citizens are sticking put despite orders to get out of Dodge.
EveAnna Manley moved to Altadena 20 years ago and said she worked to prepare her home for natural disasters such as the Eaton Fire.
As of Wednesday, around 50 people had been arrested for alleged looting in wildfire evacuation zones across L.A.
Manley said she is fully prepared to face any looters who show up on her property.
“I do have firearms and I’ve been calling my friends to make sure I know how to legally exist with them,” she said.
Manley’s street is among many that remained closed to traffic and is guarded by authorities against trespassers.
“It’s a hard no blockade and I’m glad for that,” she said. “I want the hard no because I don’t want anyone else up here. There have been reports of looting and that’s frightening. We don’t want that up here.”
Manley said she was inspired by her neighbor to prepare her home for future disasters like the Eaton Fire.
“He had 55-gallon drums of water,” she recalled of her neighbor. “He had a reloading center. He put in a whole-house generator and I followed after that. I learned from him.”
As much as Manley prepared for natural disasters by taking steps like getting a generator and removing the wood shingles from her home, I'm glad to know that she's also been thinking about what to do to protect her property from those human cockroaches who are using the wildfires to steal from the folks who've fled their homes to safer locales.
I'm also curious as to how many of Manley's friends have asked her if she has a gun or two to spare; a blue-state phenomenon that Charlton Heston witnessed firsthand during the 1992 L.A. riots.
As smoke from burning buildings smudged the skyline and the TV news showed vivid images of laughing looters smashing windows and carting off boom boxes and booze, Heston got a few phone calls from firmly anti-gun friends. One conversation went this way:
“Umm, Chuck, you have quite a few … ah, guns, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Shotguns and … like that?”
“Indeed.”
“Could you lend me one for a day or so? I tried to buy one, but they have this waiting period … ”
“Yeah, I know; I remember you voted for that. Do you know how to use a shotgun?”
“No, I thought maybe you could teach me. This is getting a little scary.”
“I noticed. I could teach you, but not in an hour. You might shoot yourself instead of the bad guys. The Marines are coming up from Pendleton; that’ll end it. When it does, go buy yourself a good shotgun and take some lessons. It doesn’t get so scary then.”
Heston said his friend writer-director John Milius had more calls. His answer was more forthright: “Sorry. They’re all being used.”
I'm guessing that more than a few gun-owning southern Californians have had similar conversations since the wildfires started spreading, only in this case the Marines aren't coming up from Camp Pendleton to save the day.
California's gun laws, on the other hand, are still a roadblock when it comes to those non-gun owners who have a newfound appreciation for the right to keep and bear arms. The state's 10-day waiting period means there's no quick way for them to start exercising their Second Amendment right to even keep a firearm in their home, and the year-long (or more) delays in processing carry applications will keep them from lawfully bearing arms in self-defense, if they can even afford to pay the exorbitant fees leveled in places like Los Angeles County.
Last November's elections indicated that a majority of Californians are tired of the state's soft-on-crime policies, but that doesn't mean every one of those folks has embraced their Second Amendment rights. The unfolding disaster in southern California could prove to be a clarifying moment for many residents, however... at least those who now realize that the state isn't going to protect them or their property in times of crisis.
