Awakenings IV.

(Via Jeff.) The Boston Glob Globe reports that Louisiana Wal*Mart stores stopped selling firearms in the aftermath of Katrina, but that didn’t slow the explosion of sales of firearms:

Halted gun sales infuriate customers

By Sasha Talcott, Globe Staff | September 11, 2005

BATON ROUGE, La. — As fearful residents rush to stock up on guns, Wal-Mart, one of the region’s biggest suppliers, abruptly stopped selling them at 40 stores scattered throughout the Gulf Coast.

The move infuriated some Wal-Mart customers in this fiercely progun region, some of whom said the big chain left them without protection as the violence increased after Hurricane Katrina.

Ah, but here’s the part I particularly like:

Smaller stores are eagerly filling the void. Spillway Sportsman, near Baton Rouge, sold 172 guns in one three-day period after the hurricane, when normally it might sell 15. One mother came in to buy her first gun after she and her two children, ages 9 and 12, witnessed a slaying on the streets of New Orleans, said Scott Roe, Spillway’s owner.

”Her comment was, ‘I was a card-carrying, antigun liberal — not anymore,’ ” Roe said. ”She said, ‘I’m going back home, and I am not going back unarmed.’ “

Someone else wakes up. And it’s reported in the Boston Globe no less!

Previously:

Awakenings, Awakenings II, Awakenings III, and Apparently Not Totally.