Why weren’t most of these folks prepared? Most victims of Sandy are urban types with little if any experience and no training to suggest they stay prepared all the time.

Why didn’t they evacuate? If you haven’t been through a hurricane it is hard to imagine the danger in your personal circumstances. Most in the NY/NJ area have not experienced one in memory. Most associate high wind as the major threat when it is flooding 90% of the time.

Actions against looters and intruders? The right to self defense is inherent in our existence. What is not is the training and preparation needed to know and understand the use of deadly force, the five W’s of weapons and the knowledge of likely consequences of using them? Again, many are urban types or have lifestyles that make these foreign concepts. Some have political beliefs that make these necessities unattractive and as a result they are not likely to know much beyond what they see on TV, little of which is true.

As a Marine for 30 years I was stationed in areas where natural disasters are likely. Earthquakes and fire in CA, hurricanes and storm surge in NC and Fla., tornadoes in others and so on. How to respond isn’t always simply a matter of common sense alone. I stayed during hurricanes at first, not wanting to leave our home and neighbors unattended in case of emergency. As time went by I learned to prepare our home to survive as best as we could and for the aftermath but evacuated when possible, not always with success. There are times when leaving can be worse than staying and it’s impossible to know what a storm will do ahead of time. My personality since childhood has always been towards being prepared and my training as a Marine reinforced that. Preparation requires a mindset that takes a willingness to spend what’s necessary, dedicate the resources, time and effort to that preparation. Emergency generators, lights, radios, water and food, cooking and environmental needs for emergency are far beyond the daily need. Discipline and awareness are key. If small children or elderly are involved the task is complicated several times over.

It takes thought, effort, time and more to be prepared and starting a couple days before the storm is too late. Preparation is an ongoing process that demands serious consideration but it’s better than leaving your fate to chance. Preparation is almost second nature to me, now, but it took lots of time and effort to learn what I know today and I’m far from an expert.

Encouraging people to kill other people without regards to the consequences of the law will not only land the killer in prison but will bankrupt the killer with lawsuits that will ruin the killer financially for the rest of his life. Was it worth the price of a car radio?

One must also realize that if the person is young the jury will tend to sympathise with the shooting victim. Penalties from such cases usually are also much more severe than if the person was an ex-con that had a long criminal record. So again it depends who the victim is and also who is sitting on the jury and what section of the country it happened in. Red neck states believe in killing everyone because money is their only real God but liberal states often take a dim view of such Roman Colosseum behaviour.