Why were guns taken from law-abiding citizens in New Orleans?

[damarshal]

On another front, Rep. Pete Schneider, R-Slidell, filed House Bill 36, which would prohibit police from seizing firearms during a state of emergency or disaster unless an individual "is unlawfully carrying or in unlawful possession" of the weapon.

Schneider said in the aftermath of the hurricanes, police seized weapons from law-abiding citizens trying to protect their damaged or abandoned property from looters.

"This is aimed at those law enforcement officers who illegally took the guns" of citizens who were repairing their homes and protecting their possessions and families from scavengers and looters, he said.

He said the Sunday after Hurricane Katrina struck, he was working on his home -- a .45 strapped to his hip -- and spotted a stranger "casing the joint."

Schneider said he asked the man what he wanted and "he told me he was with the power company working on power lines" in the sparsely populated neighborhood. Schneider said the sight of the gun, and his persistent questioning, prompted the stranger to drive off.

The veteran Slidell lawmaker said he copied the license tag of the man's vehicle and turned it over to State Police who found out the man had an extensive criminal rap sheet.

"The law allows us to have guns" even during a state of emergency, Schneider said.

_________________________________________________________________
Sounds like another of Nagin's plans. The NOPD probably didn't want anyone protecting their property while the officers looted. While I was working in NO after Katrina I heard of two situations where NOPD officers were confronted by visiting officers who caught them looting. In one situation there was an armed standoff between the cops until the NOPD finally backed down and was arrested. What do you expect from a city founded by pirates?[/B]

 

[DRZinn]

The law allows us to have guns

:banghead: How about, "I have a right to defend myself, regardless of what type of emergency might have been declared."

When did The Law become the final arbiter of what is right or wrong?

 

[Maxwell]

When did The Law become the final arbiter of what is right or wrong?

When your politicians started to mistake themselves for european nobelmen.
They dont respect a "god given right" or common sense, so your stuck with whats written on paper.

I would think the 2nd amendment would be all the law you need to justify having a weapon in time of emergency. Just like it justifys you owning all manner of guns during non-emergencies. The constitution says I can own a gun, and it also says that you cant take it away without a damn good reason.

I think its a dangerous precedent to write a law "permits ownership" in the same vein that we've written so many laws to prohobit carry and limit people from buying weapons. All of them are in violation of the constitution, which set forth a right that we needed no new law to enforce.

Laws should state what you can't do, not what you can do.

 

[DRZinn]

They dont respect a "god given right" or common sense, so your stuck with whats written on paper.

That's it, pretty much in a nutshell.

I would think the 2nd amendment would be all the law you need to justify having a weapon in time of emergency. Just like it justifys you owning all manner of guns during non-emergencies.

Just to pick nits; even the Second Amendment is not necessary.

 

[cavman]

HankB

They would have killed you.

They would have been "innocently" been doing their duty, simply following their orders, when they came upon "resistance". At that point backup would have been called in and all their "training" would have been practice in action.

You would have been a renengade and killed.

Just serving the pubic good. It would have been a "good shoot".

sorry but I just saw the video where they smashed the old lady into her water heater and my faith in "public servants" is pretty low.

cavman

 

[mordechaianiliewicz]

I think the Big X put it right

"It is my belief that personally owned firearms were confiscated in New Orleans for the same reason food and water were witheld from the Superdome and Convention Center.

It was a tactic to try to force people to evacuate the city. When taking guns did not work, New Orleans residents were forcibly loaded onto trucks, and shipped out of state.

Why were forced evacuations even attempted? Power, pure and simple. Whoever gets a piece of the "Rebuild NOLA" pie, especially the ability to hand out contracts, will become a very wealthy man. Nagin wants it. Mitch Landrieu wants it, many others, including the New Orleans Krewes want it. Attempts at seizing guns and evacuating the non-flooded Garden District was simply an attempt at grabbing the power to control huge amounts of federal money. If you control the money coming in, you get money for your decisions."


Look, Louisiana was the most corrupt state in the Union. Do you really believe for one moment that was gonna change because a big storm came?

Please.

Look, Mr. Chocolate City and his cronies just were lookin' out for #1

 

[Crosshair]

Sometimes, you have to loose the battle to win the war.

Well, I have a crappy POS shotgun (Bought it as a "lets see if I can fix it" gun.) that I can let them have If I need to be rid of the JBTs. Everything else will be hidden all over the house and garage. Of course I will have my tape recorder in my pocket to record the whole exchange.

 

[Desertdog]

When was it, 20 to 30 years ago that the same people crying "Global Warming' were crying "Another Ice Age" is coming?

Which is it going to be, Global Warming or Ice Age?

 

[cbsbyte]

Personally I think they took them away from citizens because the powers that be where afraid that the city would turn into the wild west without the police and armed gangs would rule the streets. They also though there was a good chance that there would be shoot outs with rescuers etc from pissed off citizens who are left to fend for themselves. Some of this did happen but not on the scale the goverment thought it would happen. And in most cases the armed citizens where an asset.

 

[tellner]

Desertdog, the thing you have to realize here is that we are talking about science rather than religion or wishful thinking. In religion (at least revealed religions) you get your beliefs given to you. No questions. No lack of faith. In wishful thinking you believe whatever you want and get to deny anything that doesn't agree with your fears, prejudices and self-absorption.

Science is more difficult. Every conclusion is tentative. Everything is subject to questioning. And the data are king. As the ability to get new and more accurate information increases the theory changes to fit the new knowledge. This means that your conclusions will change.

Thirty years ago some, and I stress that it was a minority, believed that we were entering a cooling period. We had just learned a lot about periodic Ice Ages, and the data suggested that it was a possibility.

We know a lot more now. We have better modelling, infinitely better data, more information from more sources, and an understanding of weather and climate that is profoundly better. In the 1970s there was a lot of disagreement about the direction climate was heading. The data were sparse and ambiguous.

It isn't like that now. We have too much information from too many different, independent sources. The data fit some theories and not others. The models have become predictive instead of merely speculative. And the frightening thing is that they all come to the same conclusion. We are entering a phase where the planet is hotter than it has been in almost 200,000 years. The Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland ice are all retreating and not reforming. Most if not all of the warming can be attributed to human activity. The rate of change is increasing and is in line with some of the more pessimistic models predicting fast change.

There. Is. No. Serious. Disagreement. Among. Scientists. About. This. Anymore.

The science is there. The data are consistent. Science magazine analyzed all of the refereed, peer-reviewed work on climate change over the last about ten years. It all points towards global warming caused, almost certainly caused in large part by human activity.

Maybe we will suddenly develop a whole bunch of new methods, theoretical tools and gather a whole bunch of new data that changes the scientsts' minds. We might also develop science that demonstrates the certainty that purple simians will perform an aero-acrobatice maneuver out of the descending part of my alimentary tract. They are about equally good bets.

The deniers here fall into a few camps. First are the oil and coal companies and their shills. They can be counted on to mount an expensive public relations campaign complete with astroturf activism against anything that isn't in lock-step with their business model.

Second are the religious fanatics who can't entertain the possibility of anything anywhere happening in some way other than their beliefs dictate. Since facts and reason do not apply to them, they can be excluded from the company of rational adults.

Third are those who have faith in a political party. If it's against The Party Line it can't be true. Shove them into the corner with the religious fanatics.

Fourth are the ignorant. Ignorance is curable.

Fifth are the pathologically conservative. And I don't mean that in the political sense. A lot of people are incapable of believing that things change. It was true when Daddy was a boy. It's true now. It will always be true. Many of these are terrified of change and love their comfort above all. Anything which interferes with it must be rejected.

Finally, there are those who have examined a good portion of the evidence and arguments but hold a different interpretation. Unfortunately, their numbers are vanishingly small compared to the first five. And they include almost no atmospheric scientists, climatologists or anyone else with a relevant professional background.

 

[Desertdog]

tellner

There. Is. No. Serious. Disagreement. Among. Scientists. About. This. Anymore.

Arguments Against The Global Warming Theory:
http://www.cs.usask.ca/undergrads/kmb129/490/assignments/assignment_1/against_global_warming.html

Read it for yourself.

Last paragraph reads;
The Increase in Temperature is not necessarily a Bad Thing:

Some of the critics of the global warming theory also suggest that even if the earth is warming it is not a cause for
alarm. Historical evidence supports the idea that warmer climate intervals are beneficial for human activities, food
production, and health. Cold periods have had the opposite effect.

 

[engineer151515]

Most if not all of the warming can be attributed to human activity

That point is still in dispute.

Fluctuations in solar output remains the overriding dominant factor.


Back to topic.

I've been to New Orleans twice since Katrina.

For folks who have not seen it, or have not witnessed a war zone, the destruction is overwhelming.

To think the Chief of Police would be proclaiming "Only police officers will have guns" would have crushed my confidence in my local government. Where I might have talked with cruising LEO on patrol, instead I would have avoided any interaction with them.

I'm sure many dreaded to see the Police in their neighborhood after the confiscations began. Isn't that an irony?

 

[tellner]

Desertdog, I'm afraid that is worse than laughable. That site isn't by anyone with a single scientific credential. Most of the tiny number of references are from economic groups who are ideologically opposed to anything that doesn't support their financial dogma. The one, and I repeat one bit from NOAA has been subsequently repudiated by NOAA as incomplete and superseded by better data which supports a much stronger conclusion. They put up a couple of graphs from seven years ago but nothing more recent. They don't even attempt to look at the scientific literature. They consider no opposing evidence.

In other words, it's not science. It's wishful thinking, propaganda, or just plain lies. It doesn't belong in the same conversation with real science doing real work.

I'm sorry. I truly am. But that site isn't worth more than two minutes' consideration.

Engineer1515, you might have more of a point. But again, the data so far support methane, CO2, NOX and (to some degree) H2 from human activity as the main culprits. The politically motivated say "could be" "might be" "other unknown causes", but they haven't presented any data in support of their point yet. I agree that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but the scientists haven't come up with anything else. And their evidence for the mechanism is pretty good. This isn't a random fluctuation. It's a two hundred year darned near monotonic trend. In the absence of any sort of evidence to the contrary what can an honest man do but go with the best science we have?

Please, nobody bring up Michael Crichton. It would only insult everyone's intelligence. As Jared Diamond said, when Crichton launched a fairly vicious personal attack, "And the other thing is that Michael Crichton is a very skilled writer of fiction. And fiction is, by definition, the telling of stories that are untrue. He's very good at that. And I'm a writer of nonfiction, which aims to be the telling of stories that are true."

 

[Kim]

Jared Diamond is also biased. He is also very left wing biased. He will take your guns and your truck. Watch out. Sorry he is a hack.

 

[tellner]

Kim, please learn something about science and scientists. Jared Diamond may or may not be "left wing biased". But his research is impeccably honest. It stands up in the hard, hard court of scientific argument. He even does something that writers of political screed like Crichton would never do. He changes his mind based on the evidence and lives and dies by his honesty.

Writers of fiction don't. They make their living by making up things that are not true but which appeal to the emotional prejudices of their audience. Reduce your statement to its semantic content:

"I don't like what he says. He isn't just like me. So it can't be true. Someone else wrote something that I like in a book. So his book must be true."

Where does that leave us? 2 + 2 = 5 if The Party says so?

Another thing that you'll have to accept is that reality is not "left wing" or "right wing". It simply is. All the whining and pleading in the world don't change a thing. The universe doesn't give a danm about your political ideology. The reflexive tactic more commonly found on the Right, including you in this case, is to immediately smear anyone who doesn't agree with you. "Heretic!" "Liberal!" "Big Endian!" Once you've used The Words you can safely ignore anything they have to say.

This sort of lowest-road tactic works in politics. It doesn't mean diddly in the world of facts, logic and data. All it does is destroy the foundations of science and debase us all.

 

[Art Eatman]

I'm as interested in discussions about Globular Worming as anybody, but not in a thread about Nyawleens and guns.

Great subject for APS.

Art

 

[tellner]

fair enough. we've certainly created a lot of human-generated heat

 

[Desertdog]

Global warming, global cooling, only time will tell; BUT keep your guns handy in either case.

Personally, I don't like the cold.

 

[publius]

Great subject for APS.

I agree with that.

 

[saltydog]

Local law authorities confiscated those weapons from the residents in New Orleans because those same residents let law enforcement take them from them. It was the choice of those said residents for what ever reasons they felt that they had to. I personally think that it will be harder to confiscate weapons in the next desaster as most people have now seen the outcome of Govt help.

 

[WeedWhacker]

Local law authorities confiscated those weapons from the residents in New Orleans because those same residents let law enforcement take them from them.

In many cases, you've got the authorities present with body armor and loaded M4s, etc., and citizens with shotguns and 5-shot revolvers. Even in a situation where confiscation was both illegal and unconstitutional (state AND federal), it is very, very hard to be the first one to say "no".

There are only a few possible outcomes:

- Authorities go away quietly (how often has this happened?)
- Authorities escalate the situation, citizen wounded/killed
- Authorities escalate the situation, parties on both sides wounded/killed
- Authorities escalate the situation, authorities wounded/killed

Even if you were to have neutral third parties there with cameras rolling, NONE of the likeliest (last three) situations would bode well for the citizen in the above cases. Would you volunteer to be the first one?
There is indeed such a thing as "critical mass", but there always has to be a first person.

 

[Firethorn]

I agree with WeedWhacker. I could only hope that when the police come by confiscating, that they don't find all my guns if I'm alone. If there are others there, I would, if possible, record the incident, including recording condition at the time of the confiscation. I'd also demand a receipt. If they say they can't give me one, I'd imply that they're stealing them, because no accountability is being taken.

Of course, they'd have fun filling up their trunk.

 

[XavierBreath]

In many cases, you've got the authorities present with body armor and loaded M4s, etc., and citizens with shotguns and 5-shot revolvers. Even in a situation where confiscation was both illegal and unconstitutional (state AND federal), it is very, very hard to be the first one to say "no".

There are only a few possible outcomes:

Authorities go away quietly (how often has this happened?)

This happened at least once in New Orleans. The resident was Ashton O'Dwyer. He refused to be evacuated by law enforcement, on camera. He stated "I will leave when I am dead. OK. Let them be warned. They come to my house, they try to evict me, they try to take my guns, there will be gunfire." When officers insisted they were only there to help, he instructed them to "Treat me with benign neglect. Get out of my neighborhood, get out of my life, get out of my God damned city." Ashton O'Dwyer was left alone, and he is still in possession of all of his firearms.

There are many heroes after hurricane Katrina. Not all of them wear a uniform. FWIW, Ashton is now spearheading Pat Konie's lawsuit.

 

[Leanwolf]

If anyone thinks that -- given the order from "higher authority," -- MOST police, whether Federal, State, or local, and the Military, won't kill anyone and everyone who does not obey their demands that the worker peasants "give up therir guns for the greater good," that person is extremely naive and ignorant.

I'd wager a lot of money that MOST police, Federal, State, and local, and MOST Military members, haven't even the faintest idea as to what is in the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights. MOST not only don't know, they don't care.

Orders are orders, and having ultimate POWER over the worker peasants, the POWER of Life & Death, is a very, very heady, elixer.

L.W.

 

[GrizzlyGraves]

I downloaded a video of an ABC newscast that showed the police going door to door taking guns and actually cuffing law-abiding citizens. There was also a video of a natl. guard troop or someone knocking down an old lady and taking her gun away. It wouldn't play on my computer though. Anyone know where I can get that video??