Posted on 03/05/2006 4:50:17 AM PST by chemicalman
When people talk about the disaster in New Orleans these days it's in terms of the rebuilding effort or Mayor Nagin's 'Chocolate City' gaffe. But there's another story which isn't getting a lot of coverage anymore - it's the kind of story the mainstream media tends to avoid. Yet it might be more significant for the country in the long run. It's the story of the unconstitutional disarming of the New Orleans citizenry when they were faced by what was likely the greatest threat of their lives, right in their own neighborhoods.
At the height of the chaos in New Orleans, when gangs were ravishing the city the government decided to help out. Not by protecting neighborhoods and arresting looters. Instead they went after private citizens whose only crime was trying to defend themselves and their property.
Acting under an emergency statute which had never been used before, and on the orders of the Governor and Mayor, police in New Orleans, later supported by National Guardsmen, began going house to house and confiscating privately owned firearms in direct violation of the Second Amendment, leaving honest citizens who were already without water, food, electricity and decent shelter at the mercy of looters and other criminals. All these citizens wanted to do was to defend their homes and instead having already lost everything, they lost their last freedom, the freedom to defend themselves.
The National Rifle Association took action almost immediately and filed suit in a case which resulted in an injunction against the seizures and the eventual return of most of the firearms to their owners weeks and months later. The legal basis for the seizure was highly suspect and even in the face of the crisis the court realized this and acted to restore civil rights.
It was a brief crisis, corrected by the court system, but while judges could reverse what was done, they could never restore to the disarmed citizens their faith in a government which turned our protectors into storm troopers and wouldn't even let citizens protect themselves in a time of violence and chaos. Now four months have passed and we're all trying to put Katrina and the crisis in New Orleans behind us and move on. But this incident remains as an object lesson to all of us in how vulnerable we are in the face of government abuse of power, and how the interests of government are not always the interests of the people. It is something which should not and must not be forgotten as time passes, because it could happen again and there are plenty of people in this country who would like to see us all disarmed and living in fear.
""New Orleans was the first place in American history to disarm peaceable citizens, house-by-house, at gunpoint," LaPierre said. "And I promise you this standing here today: We at the NRA are going to make sure it's the last place it ever happens.""
Randy Weaver or Waco (and dozens of other lesser-knowns) didn't even get honorable mention, huh?
Well, I'll admit it wasn't house-by-house. It was just 'house.' I guess that makes it okay. And those weren't about confiscating guns anyway. It was only about taking down 'enemies of the state.' ;(
What we need is a national organization that works against tyranny in general, to include property confiscations, eminent domain, no second-hand smoke laws, taxation without representation, arbritrary police powers, judges who make more money under the table than they get paid in salaries, congress critters likewise, etc.
Yeah, that's what we need. A quick-response anti-tyranny team to nip the wannabe despots in the bud, regardless of what level of government service they are in.
I know the basic rule is that you have to go to court to claim your rights at great expense . . . an expense few can afford, even though everybody agrees you were born with those rights.
Problem is, few are aware of the basic rule. The other problem is there are no penalties for gummint folks who violate your rights and their oath of office . . . those who kill, cheat, rob, and violate the rights of Citizens they are sworn to protect.
Replacing 'ne-er-do-wells' at the polls each year seems like the only remedy. Not too effective, I fear, as we get more of the same from the incoming shipment of public servants.
Immediate and sure remedies to correct the errant ways of our public servants ought to be in force. Great minds should start working on this.
Military units also did. Federal and mobilized national guard from all states and territories. The guns were turned over to New orleans or LA authorities and no records were kept of what was taken and from whom.
LA authorities intended to destroy the weapons and may have already done so.
New Orleans PD -- well we know about them; some of them bugged out and some took part in the looting, none of them are any good from rookie to chief and back again. They will probably just hand weapons over to their fellow criminals. So a citizen might see his gone again, it'll just be a gangbanger carjacking him with it.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Makes good sense to me
In the movie "Red Dawn" where the invaders set up a base in a small Colorado town, one of the first orders the new commander issued was to go to the gun stores and collect the "4473s", the yellow form every buyer has to fill out when he buys a gun from a dealer. The dealer must keep those forms on file forever or until he goes out of business, when he is to forward them to the BATFE.
Since the ATF can come inspect a gunstore and the records therein at any time, there have been plenty of reports of ATF employees simply entering all the 4473 data into portable computers, probably for uploading into a national database. If you bought it from a dealer Big Brother knows about it.
Even if you buy it from a private party it can probably be traced to you since that private party needs to cover his -- er -- assets if an investigation is conducted. It may seem wrong in many respects, but the only gun you can buy and be reasonably certain it won't be traced is a stolen one.
Individuals were given no choice. The authorities searched houses, if they so much as suspected there was a firearm present. Plus many folks likely weren't hiding their guns, but rather displaying them as a deterrent. Plus the "You loot, We shoot" signs in the neighborhoods. However I'm sure they did not get them all. I don't know if they went to local guns stores and looked at the 4473s or not. If they did, that is yet another violation, of a mere federal law. But who cares about a mere law when one is raping the Constitution? Still it would be interesting to know if they used the de facto registration records maintained by the dealers.
That depends on where you live. Most states it's perfectly legal to purchase firearms from another individual with no paperwork. I've got at least two like that myself. 'Course I live in Texas, where the only restrictions on purchase and possession are the federal ones.
That's not clear to me. I've seen no documented cases of federal military or even National Guard, troops actually confiscating firearms. Nor directly supporting police when they did so. Could have happened, but I've not seen any unambiguous reports of it. If it did, there should also be some court martial actions for violation of the oath to support and defend the Constitution, issuance of illegal orders, and obeying illegal orders.
Hmm, sounds very much like the incident that many saw here as a video clip. Except in that case it was a little old lady, and the gun was a revolver. Same CHP and LA trooper though. So either the caller was transfering the incident to himself, or the "team" was very busy.
It is just another way for the "progressive leftists" Democratically run State of Louisiana to impose their rules not laws on the people of NO and the rest of the state.
In the case of the paperless guns I have, the seller did not know me, nor did he take my name. I did buy one other pistol that way, but sold it to my father in law. It's still in his gun safe AFAIK, although it did get lots of use those first few years after he bought it.
One caller was supposedy a NOPD officer that called in screaming that they were being shot at and there was martial law, etc. He quickly hung up after his ranting and didn't give the talk show folks any time for reasoning.
I wish the radio station had a transcipt of the show. I looked all over their site and couldn't find any.
Please help me out with this one. What does a "homeowners association" have to do with gun ownership? I live out in the country so I am not familiar with "homeowners associations".
Such busybodies are sure to see your guns as a threat to their established dictatorship.
There was a family owned gun-store back home where grandpa had a bad habit of dozing off while doing the paperwork and dropping his cigarette into the files. I can recall 2 or 3 fires where most of the files where lost. Fortunately, their office was built from fire-rated materials and nothing except some old forms were lost.
Ordinary paper tends to degrade after awhile. I think nitrocellulose "paper" can be more stable, if it's kept in suitable conditions.
Sometimes it is lonely out here in the boonies without neighbors ... but sometimes it is kind of nice, too.
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