Under the Gun(s)

Where y'at, darlin?

Yesterday, Otter saw guns changing hands at work, at the oh.so.normal day job.

People got 10 guns at home
+
they wanna make sure their compatriots are protected when the shit goes down
=
"Lemme Loan You a Piece, Podner."

Otter saw or knew of at least 13 fireable weapons changing hands within a matter of hours.
A greyhaired, well educated, shark of a gentleman, who had always impressed Otter as being incredibly levelheaded, offered Otter a .22 pistol.

~Uhm, no, thanks; we'll be alright.
*(cue eyebrow hike) In the Quarter? It's just a little gun; no big deal.
~Nah, man, I got a machete, a 2-foot pipe wrench, and a crazylady at home.
*Too close! Too close! You can't bring a machete to a gunfight! Please take it?
~I don't wantchyer fuckin gun!
...I mean, thanks and everything....~

Then all these kitchen folk started exchanging gunshot scars, talkin "I got shot five times! Once in the leg, three times in the torso, and once in the arm, but I just kept breathin, y'know?" These guys talkin about all the guns they got, how you better be packin if you wanna try and go outside after this weekend.
And maybe they're right.
They'd know better than I would.
Maybe.
However:
instead of buying the (inherentinvisible)propaganda, I've done the research. Gun might protect you when you need it. Way more likely it's gonna hurtchya, though. And, I mean, I used to be a crack shot, used to have deadlyass aim, but I haven't fired a gun in over 10 years, y'know? It'd be pointless for me to have one, unless I were going to use it as a bludgeon. And Otter? Forget it. Ain't no way that mammal needs to be holding an explosive device. No. Way. My territorial aquapod is a menace with a knife, and ninjafuckinfast. Work with whatcha got, baby.
Remember that bad shit sometimes happens to good people, and there maybe ain't a goddamned thing you can do about that. Also remember that the majority of people can still hear their hearts beating in their chests. There are far fewer deadeyes than there are living folks; far more people willing to be kind and helpful than there are people willing to fuckin stab you for your bottle of water.
Of course, there's also an additional 1400 National Guard in town, as well as New Orleans' own overzealous, undereducated, overcorrupted police force, totin automatic weapons in the neighborhood...
It's not the normal people I'm concerned with;
It's these big guns with even bigger egos behind, with godzilla-sized Fear behind that.

Remember, it wasn't, repeat, WAS NOT Hurricane Katrina that fucked over New Orleans last time.
It was the flooding caused by the Army Corps of Engineers.
It was the in.over.their.heads military pointing big fuckin guns at very traumatized, very innocent people.
It was the Federal Government turning its back on the city.
Completely.

Hurricane didn't do more damage than normal.
People of the city didn't go crazy tryin to kill each other so much as tryin to protect each other from the people with the guns, from the results of the Federal Government's laissez-faire policies concerning poor people.

We're gonna be just fine.

Just fine.