Reply #22: What happened in New Orleans bears examination, but it seems to me

[struggle4progress]

that the issues go far beyond "over-reaching government confiscates guns." The DU archives should contain news stories from the time, indicating that a first reaction of some Republican political theorists was Hey! A disaster will enable us to turn New Orleans red! Misleading press coverage then created an inaccurate impression of violent dangerous rioting slum residents, which created fear in surrounding areas and prevented hungry thirty people from leaving the city for safer ground. Meanwhile, the Federal authorities, controlled by a group of ideologues whose primary belief was "the Federal government can do nothing good," did ... well, nothing. In the end, large numbers of New Orleans residents were essentially deported to other parts of the country

The actual responses, and (sometimes sadly more important) actual lack of responses, to the New Orleans tragedy served specific political interests. Professional first responders, and a number of would-be volunteers, were prevented from doing search-and-rescue work in the early days -- because preventing such work served those interests.