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.
Article comments
1 - Pat Fish
I'm supposing, not that this makes it right, but I would think that this stupid action was taken to avoid some sort of civil war type of situation in NO.
IE...the cops didn't know who was good who was bad, so the position was to get rid of all firearms held by private citizens lest they get shot while defending their homes and property.
It was, I must agree, a really, really dumb thing. I do recall reading about this but the order was stopped very quickly.
Per the mantra, "remember New Orleans", I'd have to say it while pointing my gun at whoever was trying to take it, warning them to leave the property.
I'll be damn if I'd be there defenseless while hoodlums roamed unfettered and natural disasters left me vulnerable.
Someone hadda be nuts. I'd love to know who gave that order.
2 - Dave Nalle
Pat, check out the video link in the text. It's the first link under 'going house to house'. It shows the national guard going into a wealthy neighborhood where there's no need to evacuate people because there's no flooding, and seizing their firearms for no reason at all. These people were targets of looting and were staying int heir houses at great personal risk. The police had largely abandonned the city, and here come the national guard taking away their one means of defending themselves. Totally outrageous.
Someone hadda be nuts. I'd love to know who gave that order.
Basically, the governor authorized it, but the decision was made by the NO police chief, who has since been removed from his job.
dave
3 - Dave Nalle
And I might add removed with good reason. If you watch that video there's a really chilling quote from him.
Dave
4 - Baronius
Wow. I'd missed this story the first time around. Thanks for posting it.
5 - Dave Nalle
I only posted it last night, Baronius, so you didn't miss it for long. I really should have written it last fall, but in a way it's even more timely now because we've had time to forget about some of the abuses that happened in the wake of Katrina by now.
Dave