Someone was nice enough to email me this link to share:

U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp signed an emergency order allowing the seizure of private guns, ammunition, explosives and property the National Guard may need to respond to Hurricane Irma.

Mapp signed the order Monday in preparation for Hurricane Irma. The order allows the Adjutant General of the Virgin Islands to seize private property they believe necessary to protect the islands, subject to approval by the territory’s Justice Department.

I thought this sort of thing was proven to be an extremely bad PR move after the Katrina episode but some people don’t learn, I guess.

A couple questions worth asking: how do they know where the private guns are so they can seize them? Hmmmm.

Further reading:

Second Amendment groups are in arms over orders given by the Caribbean territory’s governor activating the islands’ military forces and granting them emergency powers.

With powerful Category 5 Hurricane Irma tracking for the islands, Gov. Kenneth Mapp (I) called out the 1,000-member Virgin Islands National Guard and, as first reported by the Daily Caller, issued orders to Adjutant General Deborah Howell on Monday that the force is “authorized and directed to seize arms, ammunition, explosives, incendiary material and any other property that may be required by the military forces for the performance of this emergency mission.”

It is unbearably smokey today. The winds picked up and it’s blowing out there pretty strongly. The Lolo fire, which is the one making things so fun to breathe around here, apparently flared back up and we are now in the smokiest air I have seen since the great fires of ’01. In short, it’s some really bad air out there. I’m hiding in my house with all the doors closed to try and mitigate the situation. My basement is the only place with relatively clean air since there’s no access to the outside down there.

There is virtually no vehicle traffic nor pedestrian traffic outside. Its like this place was neutron bombed or something.

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Reminder: Paratus is in about two weeks!

I just found out that Sonny Landham died about a week or so ago.

Who, you ask? Why, ‘Billy’ from Predator. You know, the guy who “wouldn’t wish that on a broke dick dog” and “We’re all gonna die.”

Sonny Landham, the Native American actor who costarred in action films Predator and 48 Hrs., has died at the age of 76.

According to his sister, Landham died from congestive heart failure in a hospital in Lexington, KY, the AP reports.

Beginning his career in adult films and stunt work, Landham transitioned into acting work in the late 1970s, often drawing on his Cherokee and Seminole ancestry to portray characters of Native American descent.

His mainstream movie debut was a minor role as a subway policeman in Walter Hill’s 1979 film, The Warriors. Based on that performance, Hill cast him in his first major role as Billy Bear, one of the criminals being tracked by Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs. 

Landham’s most memorable role came opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, portraying another Billy — Billy Sole, the Native American tracker in Predator.

There’s a handful of action movies that are so over the top that they are classics. “Predator” was easily one of them.

Did the 27-rd Magpul 9mm mags ever actually hit the market? I know the 15-,17-, and 21-rd mags did but I’ve never seen anyone with the 27-rders in stock.

So there’s a hurricane beating on Texas that is sparking all sortsa comparisons to Katrina. Anyone remember that? I remember thinking that Katrina was going to be the paradigm by which disaster responses (and disasters themselves) were benchmarked by for the next few decades. And, so far, I’ve been right.

I expect the AAR’s from people to start showing up on the usual forums soon. I’m especially curious to see if local governments have learned anything since then regarding these huge events. To be fair, Texas actually has some pretty decent emergency management, and Louisiana isn’t exactly known for its ‘can do’ attitude.

Of course, there’ll also be the footage of people sitting on rooftops and being roped out of flooded cars as they ask why officials don’t “do something”.

Two kindsa people…the prepared and the unprepared. No surprise which camp will fare better in this thing.