THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS New Orleans police can't disarm evacuees - orders weapons returned

Houston Chronicle ^ | September 24, 2005 | Bill Walsh

[Cincinatus' Wife]

NEW ORLEANS - Gun rights groups won a temporary restraining order Friday preventing police in New Orleans and a nearby parish from confiscating people's firearms when seeking to evacuate residents.

U.S. District Court Judge Jay Zainey ordered the New Orleans Police and St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office to stop taking weapons from law-abiding people and return any they already took in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

In documents filed in federal court in Baton Rouge, La., New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Police Chief Eddie Compass and St. Tammany Sheriff Jack Strain deny ordering the confiscation of firearms.

But news reports quoted Compass as saying that only law enforcement officials would be allowed to have firearms and Deputy Chief Warren Riley as saying, "We are going to take all the weapons."

Wayne LaPierre, president of the National Rifle Association, said his group documented 30 to 40 cases of people having their weapons taken away after Katrina hit Aug. 29.

"In many cases, it was from their homes at gunpoint. There were no receipts given or anything else at a time when there was no 911 response, and these citizens were out there on their own protecting their families," LaPierre said."The worst thing about it is that it was at a time of complete collapse of the government's ability to protect people."

In the immediate aftermath of Katrina, there were widespread reports of looting throughout New Orleans. At the outset, the city ordered the police to ignore looters and focus instead on search and rescue. But within days, crime spiraled out of control and police were directed to restore order.

To gain control of the situation, Gov. Kathleen Blanco issued emergency power orders, which allow the authorities to regulate firearms. But the suit alleged that law enforcement officials overstepped the bounds by taking guns away in violation of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

[FixedandDilated]

*sigh* One at a time, I think. And we need more decent judges who can read and understand the plain language of the Constitution, and not make new law from the bench. I think they've forgotten that the judicial branch is not superior to the other two branches of government.

[Dan Evans]

They kill you, take all the guns in the house and now your family gets to face the looters without you and without any protection?

On the other hand, if they have to shoot it out every time they try confiscate guns, they will probably stop doing that. You really gave to consider the greater good.

[Borax Queen]

:)

[Old Student]

I, too, have a wife and children. What message do I send them if I allow things like this? It's ok to knuckle under when it's MY precious hide? Or theirs? I think not.

I'm also an amateur historian, and a history & government teacher. I have a responsibility to teach the truth, and to model proper behavior. Not just to my family, but to my students as well.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

I cannot expect them to do the right thing if I will not, regardless of cost. I lived my life in the Air Force that way, I can't see any reason to change now.

[Travis McGee]

I would probably turn over an old .38, in order to avoid a detailed home search.

After that, the local govt would have shown its true colors, and all bets would be off. They would have revealed themselves to be the very domestic enemies we swore to defend the Constitution from. The next steps would depend on the situation, possibly a lawsuit as in NOLA, possibly other things if the confiscations were the opening round of establishing a thugocracy.

[B4Ranch]

Source:
The Cybercast News Service
http://www.cnsnews.com/

Judge Issues Restraining Order Against New Orleans Gun Seizures
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200509\NAT20050923d.html

By Melanie Hunter CNSNews.com Senior Editor
September 23, 2005

(CNSNews.com) - A federal judge Friday issued a temporary restraining order on behalf of two Second Amendment rights groups ending the seizure of firearms from citizens in and around New Orleans.

Video: Citizens Handcuffed, Forced To Give Up Firearms
http://www.gunowners.org/abcnews.mpg

U.S. District Judge Jay Zaney issued the restraining order against those named in a lawsuit brought by the Second Amendment Foundation and the National Rifle Association, which include New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Chief Edwin Compass III.

"This is a great victory, not just for the NRA and SAF, but primarily for law-abiding gun owners everywhere," said SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb. "We are proud to have joined forces with the NRA to put an end to what has amounted to a warrantless gun grab by authorities in New Orleans and surrounding jurisdictions."

Gottlieb said not only did residents of New Orleans lose "virtually everything" in Hurricane Katrina, they were also essentially "stripped" of their right to self-defense.

"SAF and NRA had no alternative but to take action," said Gottlieb. Otherwise, the gun seizures "would have set a dangerous precedent that would have encouraged authorities in other jurisdictions to believe they also could suspend the civil rights of citizens in the event of some other emergency."

Gottlieb challenged New Orleans authorities to explain how they will promptly "return all of those firearms to their rightful owners." He said the ruling "affirms is that even in the face of great natural disasters, governments cannot arbitrarily deprive citizens of their rights."

See Earlier Stories:

Second Amendment Groups Move to Stop Gun Seizures (Sept. 22, 2005)
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=\Culture\archive\200509\CUL20050922a.html

New Orleans Gun Seizures Allegedly 'Creating More Victims,' (Sept. 14, 2005)
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200509\NAT20050914a.html

[B4Ranch]

The LAST thing I will be concerned with is making sure I don't lie to a cop who is committing a crime! In my eyes he would be a robber with a badge undeserving of the truth.

[PeteB570]

Your's is the same idea that I and a number of others have put forth in this thread.

Comply with the least amount of compliance and get them off your porch and down the street as quickly as possible. Get as much information as you can and hit them in court as soon as the emergency has settled down a bit.

For the "cold dead finger" crowd? We'll see.

[ExSoldier]

This time, I have to agree with Iris7. This was not the time to offer armed resistance. That time may come and maybe sooner than we like to think about, but it was not a nationwide gun grab, it was local. Were I all by myself, I still might offer my own version of the Alamo, but I could not offer my poor wife's neck into certain death. You married a freeper. Honestly, could you? Be honest. You know it's small potaotes and local. Your lives will be but a blip on the radar. Certainly not a Ruby Ridge or the whispered lore of gun legends. The thing to have done was to cache in advance and keep a throw away just in case. A four inch 38 would keep away the riff raff and hey let the cops grab it. THAT is a lawsuit that would keep the issue front and center later. Yeah, I'd be fuming. But I like to think I would not be stupid. There is a reason that the military counsels that the best course of action in wartime is to choose your battle; don't let the battle choose you.

[B4Ranch]

>>This injunction was not won by any other gun group.<<


U.S. District Judge Jay Zaney issued the restraining order against those named in a lawsuit brought by the Second Amendment Foundation and the National Rifle Association,

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1490434/posts?page=86#86

[joesnuffy]

When cops are criminals there is no law

[B4Ranch]

I think the moment that any became aware that the police were confiscating weapons would be the time to call every one of your friends and agree to meet two blocks away from where this was happening.

Then when 50, 100, or 500 armed civilians show up and inform them that they are breaking the law I hope it would cease immediately. The LEO's have families too. They aren't professional soldiers. They do want to go home at the end of their shift.

[Prime Choice]

New Orleans police can't disarm evacuees - orders weapons returned

I've seen how LEAs return confiscated property. It ain't quick, it ain't polite, it ain't convenient, and the property is scarcely recognizable if the LEOs don't like you.

[Prime Choice]

Then when 50, 100, or 500 armed civilians show up and inform them that they are breaking the law I hope it would cease immediately.

The cops would withdraw and send in SWAT and/or the National Guard. Then what?

[longtermmemmory]

and you will only see strong coverage of this important LEGAL issue here on FR.

[Travis McGee]

Yep. I can't see the value of dying in a front porch shootout with a SWAT team.

[cbkaty]

When a disaster strikes your community some bone head in Law Enforcement may make a "grab all guns" decision. You sit on your porch and when LEOs turn the corner you're going to have a shootout with them? They kill you, take all the guns in the house and now your family gets to face the looters without you and without any protection

Well.....a voter can begin by voting for a protector of the 2nd Amendment....also, a smart patriot knows how to ambush and run when confrontation is futile....

[M1911A1]

You raise valid points.

Let's suppose that the "zero tolerance for confiscation" policy had been used by a citizen in New Orleans. Unless the media was there, and the recorded record clearly indicated that the citizen had died because he was refusing to cooperate with the confiscation order because it was unconstitutional, what we probably would have at that point is a dead homeowner (and maybe his family) filed under the "looter/gunman shot by law enforcement" category. We may well have had this happen.

Perhaps the LEOs would retreat in the face of threatened or actual resistance, but I doubt it.

If the media was not there, and there were no survivors on the homeowner side, then we have to depend on the LEOs telling the truth about the sequence of events. Perhaps a citizen might be prescient enough to prerecord his intentions to die resisting a confiscation order in a way that ensured it could not be suppressed, but I doubt it.

Otherwise we would have to rely on the surviving family members to tell the story later in court, or in the media, once they get out of prison/the hospital.

If real and lasting tyranny had begun, any statements by survivors, LEOs or the deceased that didn't fit the agenda of the tyrants would not be allowed.

In New Orleans, due to lack of electronic communications, there really was no way of getting the word out that armed resistance to confiscation had started, at least locally, except by word of mouth. I doubt that the authorities would cooperate in spreading tales of resistance, and dead men famously tell no tales.

As it now seems to be turning out, the New Orleans confiscation policy was a temporary and stupid overstepping of authority that will be redressed in court, and hopefully the the legislative and electoral systems.

I can't argue with your convictions, and I rather admire you for them.

I simply would not be willing to bet my life and the lives of my family that the illegal actions of local government during a natural disaster were going to snowball into a general imposition of dictatorship on a national level that would preclude redress at a later date.

If the circumstances were different, and there was, for example, a coup going on at the federal level, that might change things, and there could be a set of circumstances so horrible that would make me think it was time to sell my life and the lives of my kin at the highest price I could extract.

Resisting the stupidity and ignorance of a tin-pot chief of city police and his equally wrongheaded local political bosses just doesn't cross that threshold for me.

[freepatriot32]

Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here

[Salvation]

BTTT!