Doubling Up in Baton Rouge

Doubling Up in Baton Rouge: "BATON ROUGE, La. -- Shortly after the power was restored on Thursday, my peacenik neighbor Jenny announced that she was going to buy a gun. She was going to buy a gun because she'd heard -- hadn't we all? -- that bands of desperate, sick, poor, hungry, hot, sweaty people were roving the streets of downtown Baton Rouge, not far from our own leafy green neighborhood, committing the kinds of crimes that bands of desperate, sick, poor, hungry, hot, sweaty people commit. Along with the rest of us, she'd also heard that gas, if you could obtain it, was now $5 a gallon, that fistfights were breaking out in grocery stores over the last of the sliced bread and that carjackings had become an everyday event. Eventually Jenny decided against the gun, but in her decision to go gunless she is in a tiny minority.

This is a city that's awash in rumor and armed to the teeth."