On Friday, May 4, an F5 tornado wiped the town of Greensburg, Kan., almost entirely off the map. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, along with the National Guard and local police from all over Kansas, then systematically kept out relief workers while they went house to house disarming the residents.
One bit of good news, though, is that some left-leaning anarchist types are beginning to understand the importance of ordinary citizens having firearms to defend themselves from the government, a right guaranteed by the Second Amendment.
On May 12, Dave Strano and three other members of Kansas Mutual Aid, an anarcho-communist organization based in Lawrence, traveled to Greensburg to find out what was happening on the ground and try to assist with relief efforts.
They learned that a week after the tornado, FEMA finally began allowing relief workers into the area, long after they had disarmed everyone in the city they could, bungled initial relief efforts, and established a virtually complete police state.
We intended to analyze the situation and assess how our organization could help from Lawrence. If long term physical aid was needed from us, we had to make contacts within the local populace that could offer a place to set up a base camp. We also intended to find out what happened to the prisoners in the county jail during and after the storm, and what the current procedure for those being arrested was. In a highly militarized city, the police and military were the biggest threat to personal safety. . . .
After a short while, we met with several people evacuating belongings from their home. They told us that FEMA had been there for a week, and that all FEMA could offer them was a packet of information. The packet, however, had to be mailed to the recipients, and they had no mailing address! Their entire house had been destroyed. Their mailbox was probably in the next county. . . .
FEMA’s mission was to safeguard the property of businesses in the area and offer “low interest” loans to property owners affected. The National Guard was on hand along with the local police, to act as the enforcement mechanism for FEMA, while occasionally hauling debris and garbage out of the city. . . .
In the immediate recovery after the storm, FEMA and local police not only worked to find survivors and the dead, but also any firearms in the city. As you pass by houses in Greensburg, you notice that some are spraypainted with how many weapons were recovered from the home. This is central Kansas, a region with extremely high legal gun ownership. Of the over 350 firearms confiscated by police immediately after the storm, only a third have been returned to their owners. FEMA and the police have systematically disarmed the local population, leaving the firepower squarely in control of the state. — Dave Strano, Kansas Mutual Aid
FEMA’s top priority going in was clear. It was not to help people, but to establish control and cow the population. These, of course, are the same things they did during Hurricane Katrina, with much more disastrous results.
It’s time to get rid of FEMA, and along with it, any federal government responsibility for disaster response. Ordinary people and businesses, acting on their own and collaborating, have already proved they can respond to a disaster much more effectively than government force ever could.
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Richard Braakman
May 18, 2007
I wonder about the people who implement these policies. The guns on the ground, so to speak. Do they think they are doing right?
May 18, 2007
Did FEMA disarm residents of Greensburg, Kansas after a tornado? at the will to exist
Rob Davidson
May 18, 2007
I agree. There is absolutely no Constitutional authority for FEMA, or for federal involvement in disaster recovery at all. None. Nada. Zip.
Tyler Moore
May 18, 2007
As a proud Anarcho-Capitalist, I LOVE those Anarcho-communist. They always do the coolest things when you least expect it. xD
I think I shall marry one someday, just to balance. =P
As for FEMA… Can they be the first to go during the revolution?
Weatherlawyer
May 19, 2007
Why don’t you invite us British back in and then you can have a health care like ours and freely kill anyone too ill to make it to France for help.
Then again going by the wish the Royal Family expresses to go into disaster wracked countries, Whilst Her Majesty Rex and co. easily piss on the bushes, they aren’t all that different.
Verbos
May 19, 2007
Weatherlawyer, in case you haven’t noticed, many of you Brits know your in the same boat and are helping bail the bilges already.
Verbos
May 19, 2007
What about Blackwater?
Q
May 19, 2007
Believe me it’s going to get worse
Thunderbird
May 20, 2007
the FEMA motto: disarming the country one disaster at a time
Paul K.
May 20, 2007
This is a false story. It is not like New Orleans, where police and NG were disarming citizens. In the wreckage of the town of Greensburg there were scattered many personal fireamrs which the police gathered up for safekeeping and are now returning to their rightful owners.
Things are bad enough. We don’t have to exaggerate.
See:
James Dashner
May 21, 2007
How is ‘gathering firearms scattered in the wreckage’ disarming the citizens? Am I messing something?
May 23, 2007
Help not wanted if you're an anarchist - Homeland Stupidity
Dan Clore
May 26, 2007
There’s some recent history that might put this event into perspective:
So, in the case of Katrina, we see that while the government disaster relief effort became a second disaster itself, the Common Ground Collective, an anarchist (or rather, anarchist-leaning, as not all members were necessarily anarchists themselves) relief group organized on anarchist lines (note: anarchists do not oppose organization, they oppose involuntary, hierarchical organization in favor of voluntary, non-hierarchical self-organization) did a good job providing disaster relief.
I suspect that rather than any fears about Kansas Mutual Aid making trouble, this really came from concern that they would do a good job providing disaster relief, with the attendant good publicity for anarchists and anarchism and bad publicity for government.
Warren
Jun 09, 2007
Funny how I found my Dad’s 3 firearms in the wreckage of his house, a little damp, but not disturbed in any way. I would *HOPE* that if the guns would have been laying on the ground in front of his house, they would have picked them up and kept them for safekeeping. I would have THANKED them.
This story is FALSE. I could tell when it stated ‘FEMA and Local Police….” I know the local police.
Mike
Jun 21, 2007
I worked in Katrina, and Greensburg. There are some things we all should releaze FEMA was put under Homeland Security when Katrina hit and was under the leadership of someone that did not know their job. FEMA is not an insurance policy and may look at them as that. They can not buy our homes or replace all that was lost. If they could we could not afford taxes. We all must have insurance, they are the people we need to attack. Insurance companies have more power than all, they have not paid in Katrina and many other disasters and in Kansas it is costly and you in some areas can’t get flood insurance and look at the cost for health insurance. As for sutting down the town in Greensburg you must get a handle on unaffelated volenteers and donated goods look at Katrina there were tons of donated goods that were dumped in parking lots with no place to go causing more of a hardship. As for disarming the public I was in Greensburg they did not disarm anyone when they found a firearm they secured it and all of the firearms were given back when owners came to clame them. What did you expect them to do leave them where someone could steal them or accidently discharge one. Get your facts before you try to tell everyone what happened.
Mike
Jun 21, 2007
I worked in Katrina, and Greensburg. There are some things we all should realize FEMA was put under Homeland Security when Katrina hit and was under the leadership of someone that did not know their job. FEMA is not an insurance policy and many look at them as that. They can not buy our homes or replace all that was lost. If they could we could not afford taxes. We all must have insurance, they are the people we need to attack. Insurance companies have more power than all, they have not paid in Katrina and many other disasters and in Kansas it is costly and you in some areas can’t get flood insurance and look at the cost for health insurance. As for sutting down the town in Greensburg you must get a handle on unaffelated volenteers and donated goods look at Katrina there were tons of donated goods that were dumped in parking lots with no place to go causing more of a hardship. As for disarming the public I was in Greensburg they did not disarm anyone when they found a firearm they secured it and all of the firearms were given back when owners came to clame them. What did you expect them to do leave them where someone could steal them or accidently discharge one. Get your facts before you try to tell everyone what happened.
Jean SmilingCoyote
Sep 01, 2007
I wasn’t there, so I don’t know those facts, but I can tell you the government leaders from Governor Sebelius down to City Administrator Steve Hewitt are leading Greensburg into another potential tornado disaster, but not including a requirement for tornado-resistant construction in the rebuilding plans. If you post the URL I entered in the “Website” box, readers can learn about all the options. “Green building” is 1 part of the comprehensive approach I offered them within 48 hours after the tornado. I got a letter in the Kansas City Star 6/17-18 about this problem. What is wrong with meainstream journalists who’ve seen stories about tornado-resistant construction but aren’t asking the questions of the government leaders about Greensburg?
Lori
Oct 14, 2007
That is not true. They did take some fire arms, but they were the ones found laying around town, and they were all documented and given back within a week of the storm. My grandpa lives there, so I do know this to be fact. Rescue help was there immediately following the storm, and it hasn’t left since!