New Orleans gun confiscation question

No Guardsmen helped to enforce the confiscation order. That came right from the top, though. The commander said that it was a police issue and the Guard wasn't going to deal with it.

I have friends in NOPD, and *MANY* NOPD officers refused to support the order, but they didn't make any noise about it. They just didn't enforce the order.

Weapons found in abandoned houses were 'confiscated' and I don't really have a problem with that. If they hadn't been 'confiscated' then the looters would have gotten them in the end. I do have a problem with knocking over little old ladies and taking their only means of protection from the animals roaming the streets at the time.

Nio

I seem to remember that there were some NG troops working with the bozos carrying this out. In fact, one was from OK, and told a reporter that "he'd never thought it would come to this".

Which royally ticked me off.

Bologna

I have the video on my computer of the door to door confiscation of firearms by a national guard unit. It most certainly did happen.

Video.

Video

National Guard and in state and out of state police officers participated in the confiscations.
I am not surprised that every participant denies their role now.

Nearly 1000 guns. Where did they come from?

What happened in New Orleans was a disgrace that needs to be remembered by every gun owner in our country. I have a friend who used to be with California Highway Patrol who knew and served with a few of the guys in the video, and in fact knew the guy tackling the old lady. His comment when I first showed it to him? "Yeah, doesn't surprise me."

What happened in New Orleans was a disgrace that needs to be remembered by every citizen in our country.

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Fixed.

Not everything about the NOLA confiscations was publicized.

Some thinly-veiled messages circulated at the time indicating that there was a HUGE backlash behind the scenes, with whole police departments (who had voluntarily travelled to NOLA to help) threatening to pull out of NOLA if the confiscation order wasn't recinded promptly. There were also indications that not everyone just handed 'em over.

A lot of interesting and relevant things happen without being published.
Just because you don't hear about it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
Some newsworthy items don't make the news because they might give people ideas.

I'm not so much worried about who refused the order to confiscate.. if anyone actually did. As a former marine corps drone, I tend to believe that the cops and the NG followed the group mentality and just did what they were told, no questions asked. I'm glad I'm out of the military... when I was in I saw the trend towards MOUT training, and we were NOT expecting to fight terrorists back then.

I'm more worried over the fact that this hasn't become the rallying cry for 2nd amendment rights that it should have been. We had one successful confiscation on the part of NO, and many law-abiding citizens still have their firearms locked up in Nagans trailers. The fact that guns WERE confiscated illegally, and that they JUST RECENTLY admitted to it should have thrown this entire country into attack mode. It didn't. Few people even care. Downward trend has begun... even though 'federal funds' can't be used to confiscate..I LAUGH OUT LOUD.

I'm more worried over the fact that this hasn't become the rallying cry for 2nd amendment rights that it should have been.

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That is what bothers me too. Even the NRA seemed to say "well that sucked, we should pass laws or something so it hopefully won't happen again".
I have a feeling if it happened in my neck of the woods it would be "Molon Labe" and a LOT of blood would have been shed on both sides.
I could see the PD and NG engaging people roming the streets with weapons engaging in criminal activity (NOT people patrolling their neighborhoods however, so that might be an impossible goal) but going into private residences and stripping them of their only means of defense is wreched and unforgivable.

If some idiot tried that here in Idaho the ones who came to collect the guns would get them, "Bullets First!".

this hasn't become the rallying cry for 2nd amendment rights

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Once word got out, those in charge backpedaled pretty darned fast. It got defused quickly enough that it didn't make for a viable rallying cry. "They started to take our guns, but then stopped after a couple days - AND WE'RE REALLY PEEVED OFF ABOUT IT!" just doesn't work.

As I noted before, seems there was a major off-the-record backlash behind the scenes. Methinks some heavy hitters laid it out for the mayor: "you keep this confiscation crap up, and looters will soon be the least of your worries. You want half the NRA down here fulfilling a fantasy of overthrowing tyrants? You may think it's a fantasy, but they think it's real, and I assure you their guns are real. Rescind the order, or you WILL have a revolution on your hands."

Even the NRA seemed to say "well that sucked

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The NRA had multiple suits filed so fast my head spun. They DID run with it, and the defendants DID diffuse it as fast as possible (lest a "why yes the 2nd Amendment means what it says" ruling emerge).

There was only so much that could be done with short-lived confiscation orders.

Things were chaotic down here then. But I believe the NRA got those injunctions within 48 hours after the confiscations began.

The confiscations were and still are a huge deal down here. They were not taken lightly. Especially by the folks that never believed it could happen in the first place.

flatdog

laws are one thing and actions are another. Police have discretion. This is why you normally don't get a ticket for going 2 or 3 mph over. I feel that people at the bottom should also pay like people at the top. Police and guardsmen have a duty to uphold laws and the constitution. If 2 laws seem to conflict you would think (and hope) that common sense would prevail. but apparently......

my .02

Well, contrary to what the apologists say, the NG did participate in the confiscation. There is video proof of this. There is however, NO PROOF that there were mass strikes and refusals to carry out the order. This is pure heresay. Until I read or hear of proof, I'll just consider it a myth.

We've even had members of this forum argue that the National Guard did not really participate because they would only stand in the street (fully armed with assault rifles), while the police officers would actually knock on the doors and carry out the dirty deed.

I blew apart that absurd claim by pointing out that the reason the NG was standing there WITH RIFLES is to provide muscle for the police officers. They were 100% complicit in the acts. I'm not cutting anyone any slack. I don't believe they were all marching the streets of New Orleans for fun or for their health. Not to mention, that in the middle of a crisis...where NG was in short supply and there was mass need, the government elected to alocate this precious manpower resource for CONFISCATIONS. That says a lot about their mentality.

This thread comes up about once a month, and it always includes someone stating that there were behind the scenes rejections of this order. I say BS to that. Given the mentality of these institutions, they will easily shut their mouths and follow orders. The entire mass of prior experience we all have of government/police abuse doesn't paint a picture of an organization where a confiscation order revolt would occur. If it happened, it wasn't because the order was immoral, but because they probably though it was impractical, or too dangerous or a waste of resources...That's the only way I'd believe it. I just don't believe that a large sentiment against the order existed based on MORAL reasons, like respecting gun owners Rights.

That is laughable at best.


If any "cover-ups" were made, it would certainly be covering up the confiscation abuses. Not the otherway around, where some apologists claim that we're exaggerating the confiscations.

Note how ridiculous that is. Just the fact that confiscations happened, no matter what the scale, is pure tyranny. To argue based on scale is to be grasping for straws.



Sorry if I come across as abrasive.

What about all the courts martial for refusing to obey orders?

Oh, I didn't see those, either.

Let's face it. The soldiers follow orders and so do the citizens.

End of story.

All the fantasizing about "resistance" should have died back then. Nobody is willing or able when it comes right down to it. Nor will the courts do much about it after the fact (the NRA case is a prime example - nothing much, really).

Federal, State and Local.

People in ANY uniformed service are vetted, trained, taught and REQUIRED to follow orders, no matter what. The officers and state have your job, your salary, your pension and the overall message is that you had better NOT make waves. When confronted with an illegal order there is no support for refusing it.
This is why we have SWAT team raids for misdemeanors, Waco, Ruby Ridge, New Orleans and any number of atrocities performed by people who have sworn an oath to protect and defend, uphold the constitution and the BOR.
If the sworn uniforms in N.O. had been ordered to line people up and shoot them, the only question would be: do you want them shot in the front or the back? Units might have been uneasy. Some commander might have his folks control traffic and load magazines instead of actually shooting, but no one would have protested loudly, refused, or RESISTED others who followed plainly illegal orders. They got people to gas and drive tanks into a building full of women and kids, then burn it down, let it burn, then bulldozed and hid the evidence and let the bodies rot in a trailer in Ft Worth. Then put the cover up in place. I have a friend who testified he watched them load the missing Waco front door on a truck. He's disgusted...but he STILL WORKS WITH THE FEDS.
No one refuses. Ever.
IMHO, of course. Some may think that instead they would protect and serve, or uphold the BOR.

The order not to participate came from the commander of the Regular Army troops on the scene. Regular Army troops did not participate in the confiscations after the order was issued. I'm fairly sure none did before the order was formally given.

NG troops serving under state authority, including virtually all of the LANG that had been called up, had not been federalized and thus were not under his orders and some did participate. The commander-in-chief of un-federalized national guard Soldiers is their state govenor, not the President. Despite what many here think, and my own preferences, the order to confiscate guns was not obviously illegal in the way ordering someone to shoot prisoners or citizens would be. A Soldier, in refusing what he believes to be an illegal order has to realize that his decision will be examined by a military judge at a courtmartial, and that judge will decide AFTER THE FACT as a matter of law whether the order in question was illegal or not. The fact that the Soldier "thought" the order was illegal is irrelevant.

The military has to be run this way, you can't have Soldiers debating orders on the battlefield. Generally, only orders that are obviously illegal will be disputed.

And that's enough of the rehashbash...

Art