Posted on 09/08/2005 3:40:23 PM PDT by RDTF
Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here.
No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns, or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass, the superintendent of police. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said.
But that order apparently does not apply to the hundreds of security guards whom businesses and some wealthy individuals have hired to protect their property. The guards, who are civilians working for private security firms like Blackwater, are openly carrying M-16's and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons.
Nearly two weeks after the floods began, New Orleans has turned into an armed camp, patrolled by thousands of local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, as well as National Guard troops and active-duty soldiers. While armed looters roamed unchecked last week, the city is now calm. No arrests were made on Wednesday night or this morning, and police received only 10 calls for service, a police spokesman said.
The city's slow recovery is continuing on other fronts as well, local officials said at a press conference late this morning. Pumping stations are now operating across much of the city, and many taps and fire hydrants have water pressure. Also, tests have shown no evidence of cholera or other dangerous diseases in flooded areas, though health officials have said the waters contain levels of E. coli bacteria and lead 10 times higher than what is considered safe.
Efforts to recover corpses have also started, although only a handful of bodies have been recovered so far.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I'm feeling like I did the day the feds invaded that home in Miami to kidnap Elian Gonzales. We were all saying "they have no right to do it", but there they were doing it anyway.
How would we stop this? THe homeowners should call the police to protect them, or the government, but the government is the one attacking them.
It is just this type of thing that leads to increased enrollment in militias. And to shootouts where kids get killed.
.,..and thank God they did.
In their time, the line they drew in the sand, was when the big government of their day, on an organized and massive basis, came for their weapons. That's when they fought.
Now, the situation in New Orleans does not necessarily represent those same circumstances...but the seeds are there and we'd best be ever more vigilant.
Well yeah, courts are supposed to be a check in this system. (In practice they now threaten to be a tyrantocracy of their own.) But how do you go to a court that has been abandoned?
But isn't the problem that after 200 years of deterioration, the current court system is rife with people that think the government should be able to just make a declaration and then all of our rights are gone?
"TOday I am declaring 'no-poop day', and therefore anybody caught relieving themselves will be shot on site".
Curfews are legal. Forcibly removing people from their own houses, without warrant, even for "their own safety" is never legal, even if you can find a crop of modernist judges who think that the words "martial law" trump the constitution.
If nothing else, this may give pause to those who might otherwise think the law against federal troops doing law enforcement is just a quant anacronism.
>>We will never forget Ruby Ridge and Waco.
I think this is the slow-cook recipe, designed not to remind anyone of Ruby Ridge and Waco.
"I understand all you say...yet there comes a time when a person must fight. "
No doubt. You are correct. New Orleans, this week, however, is not that time.
We did, indeed, fight a revolution to establish this country. I don't know if we will ever have to do that again, but it won't be started by individual people holding off a bunch of LEOs and NG types in the middle of a natural disaster. As I said, that way madness lies.
I'd like to see them try that in my house.... These old Garands, Carbines, and Thompsons can pack a punch...Bullets aren't like that little bitty 223..... a steel jacketed 30'06 will blast right through a telephone pole....
The more clever will probably tell them "a looter stole it."
Each of us will know when the time is right for us and we shall either stand up sqaurely to it at that day, or hunch our shoulders and walk away. God in His wisdom will know when the collective time is right and it will fall into place thusly, just as it did back in 1776.
I pray it doesn't come to that...but as I said, the seeds are there. In reality...they always are.
Someone else suggested that neighbors should simply hire each other, and pay each other the same amount.
They could sit in each other's homes. When the police come, they would say "I can't give you permission, this isn't my home, I'm the hired security guard protecting the property".
Well said...and IMHO, ingeniously all-American.
Good read:
http://mensnewsdaily.com/blog/malven/2005/09/gun-seizures-are-unacceptable-mr.html
"The Mayor of New Orleans is attempting to do in a couple of days that which has eluded the power of the anti-gun factions in this country for 218 years, strip law-abiding citizens of their right to keep and bear arms. In spite of the fact that the Constitution clearly reserves this right for the people, and under the 9th and 10th Amendments proscribes those rights among the many Americans have, specifically from the Federal and State governments; this is being allowed to occur. Mr. President, you must step in and stop this violation of the Constitution..."
The answer to what happened?
Like many here, New Orleans authorities wrongly believe that they have the power to 'regulate' the keeping & bearing of arms.
These people believe that State & local governments are not bound by the Bill of Rights, and that 'police powers' enable them to control the lives of citizens by prohibitive 'law'.
States Rightists are in control in Louisiana.
When civil society breaks down entirely, and martial law is properly declared, the Bill of Rights, for instance, ceases to apply. The Supreme Court looked at this precise question during the Civil War, with respect to lawless border areas overrun by armed gangs.
There are only two questions. Have things among the remaining civilians in NO descended to that level? (I think so.) Has Governor Blanco declared martial law? (I honestly don't know. The reporting on this has been spotty and contradictory. Does anyone have hard information, like a copy of a signed Order?)
Congressman Billybob
It's "martial law". Maybe they will remove you from YOUR house tomorrow?
"I pray it doesn't come to that...but as I said, the seeds are there. In reality...they always are."
Yes, they always are, and there's the rub. We'll always have idiots in public office, who fail to understand the Constitution. Heck, we put a lot of them there, whatever our political party.
As we learned in our own revolution back in the 1770s, you must have some critical mass behind you before you can begin to think of success. There is no such mass today. There is no sizable majority that believes such a revolution is timely today. I don't believe it, either.
Some do believe it. I see them write here on FR. I don't see the numbers growing, however. Are we a nation of sheep? Yeah, mostly. It's hard to get sheep to move in the direction you want them to move, especially if they have decent grazing where they are.
If such a revolution were attempted today, I would be on the side you don't agree with. I'm still ready to work within our Constitutional system. Progress is being made, slow as it is.
I think you'd find an awful lot of the citizenry on the same side as I'm on. That includes the armed citizenry. It's just another factor in the equation.
"Mr. President, you must step in and stop this violation of the Constitution..."
"
A noble call to action. Anyone want to give odds of this occurring?
CNN interviewed a guy this morning who made it clear that he was going to fight to stay in his home. We shall see. If he does, he will certainly lose his life as soon as he fires on the LEOs or NG folks. He will gain nothing.
There are a lot of dead patriots in history.
They gained nothing , but you and I did.
If not for the ones who are willing to give it all, freedom would have never been won.
They said it has 10 times the maximum safe level for some pollutants.
That really isn't that much. They have had some people get sick, but not thousands, so it can't be so bad that you are certain to get sick.
Now, if you are living in an area still under water, maybe you could justify a forced evacuation by pointing out that if you go to the bathroom you are polluting the water more and therefore violating the law.
But that doesn't cover those who live where they have private bathroom facilities.
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