progunner1957
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New Orleans police state tactics: NEVER AGAIN!
From Dave Workman of Gun Week magazine comes some thoughts on the question all gun owners have been asking: Is this America or not? After the police state debacle in New Orleans, some of us have been wondering...
Posted on Sun, Sep. 25, 2005
Did the Second Amendment wash away, too?
By DAVE WORKMAN
Special to the Star-Telegram
After New Orleans, will American firearms owners ever again be able to trust government, and especially police officers -- even ones they know personally?
A simple look at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina reveals a disturbing chain of events that had the issue to do with anything but guns, there would have been an uproar in the media.
But this is about firearms and the law-abiding people who own them -- people who have had their guns, their private property, forcibly taken from them by what amounts to imperial edict without due process, without the benefit of warrant and, according to various legal experts, in direct conflict with Louisiana statute and the state and federal constitutions.
In at least one instance, a gun seizure took place before television cameras and was broadcast by San Francisco's KTVU and then circulated across the Internet.
That video shows an older woman declining to be evacuated, holding a small revolver in her left hand. She appears rational and tells police -- visiting officers from the California Highway Patrol -- that she simply wants them out of her home. In the next frame, we see her gang-tackled by at least two officers and subsequently led from her home in visible anguish.
New Orleans police officials ignited this fire-storm by declaring that they would confiscate everybody's firearms. They didn't cite any statutory authority or emergency regulation -- they just did it. Why?
Because apparently that's the way that New Orleans Police Superintendent P. Edward Compass III wants it. His infuriating quote to The New York Times: "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons."
His deputy chief, Warren Riley, told ABC News: "No one will be able to be armed. We are going to take all the weapons."
Who made these guys kings?
I asked the department under what authority they were taking guns, where they are being kept and when they will be returned. As of this writing, I was still waiting for a reply.
Gun rights activists look at the film clip and statements from these law enforcement officials as disturbing evidence that, given the opportunity, police and government will disregard the Fourth Amendment while trampling the Second Amendment into oblivion, and it deeply troubles them.
Street cops insist that they are "only following orders." Where have we heard that before?
In the anarchy that reigned in New Orleans after the hurricane, it was more often than not legally armed citizens who provided the only semblance of law and order.
There were numerous reports of armed citizens protecting their homes, businesses and neighborhoods from roaming gangs of thugs and looters who were ultimately deterred by the muzzle of a gun or a warning shot fired over their heads.
Where were the police? Some left their posts; others turned in their badges. Some participated in the looting.
As order has slowly returned to New Orleans, those who survived -- many times in homes and businesses that were left high and dry even after the dikes ruptured -- have been ordered out and their guns confiscated.
One Associated Press report noted that "in the city's well-to-do Lower Garden District, a neighborhood with many antebellum mansions, members of the Oklahoma National Guard seized weapons from the inhabitants of one home. Those who were armed were handcuffed and briefly detained before being let go."
Last time I checked, Oklahoma was hard-core gun rights country. I wonder what they'd think about this back home.
According to gun rights legal expert David Kopel, Louisiana law allows for "regulating and controlling" possession, storage, display, sale and transport of firearms during extreme emergencies, but not their prohibition or confiscation.
The law, he notes, does not supersede the state constitution, which says: "The right of each citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged but this provision shall not prevent the passage of laws to prohibit the carrying of weapons concealed on the person."
Traditionally, gun owners have been the strongest supporters of police officers, and that's as it should be. The concern is that the images from New Orleans could irrevocably change that. American citizens who have committed no crime should never be expected to meekly surrender their property -- in this case, firearms -- or their right to have a gun, and subsequently their right of self-defense, just because a police chief says so.
This is still the United States, not a police state.
From Dave Workman of Gun Week magazine comes some thoughts on the question all gun owners have been asking: Is this America or not? After the police state debacle in New Orleans, some of us have been wondering...
Posted on Sun, Sep. 25, 2005
Did the Second Amendment wash away, too?
By DAVE WORKMAN
Special to the Star-Telegram
After New Orleans, will American firearms owners ever again be able to trust government, and especially police officers -- even ones they know personally?
A simple look at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina reveals a disturbing chain of events that had the issue to do with anything but guns, there would have been an uproar in the media.
But this is about firearms and the law-abiding people who own them -- people who have had their guns, their private property, forcibly taken from them by what amounts to imperial edict without due process, without the benefit of warrant and, according to various legal experts, in direct conflict with Louisiana statute and the state and federal constitutions.
In at least one instance, a gun seizure took place before television cameras and was broadcast by San Francisco's KTVU and then circulated across the Internet.
That video shows an older woman declining to be evacuated, holding a small revolver in her left hand. She appears rational and tells police -- visiting officers from the California Highway Patrol -- that she simply wants them out of her home. In the next frame, we see her gang-tackled by at least two officers and subsequently led from her home in visible anguish.
New Orleans police officials ignited this fire-storm by declaring that they would confiscate everybody's firearms. They didn't cite any statutory authority or emergency regulation -- they just did it. Why?
Because apparently that's the way that New Orleans Police Superintendent P. Edward Compass III wants it. His infuriating quote to The New York Times: "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons."
His deputy chief, Warren Riley, told ABC News: "No one will be able to be armed. We are going to take all the weapons."
Who made these guys kings?
I asked the department under what authority they were taking guns, where they are being kept and when they will be returned. As of this writing, I was still waiting for a reply.
Gun rights activists look at the film clip and statements from these law enforcement officials as disturbing evidence that, given the opportunity, police and government will disregard the Fourth Amendment while trampling the Second Amendment into oblivion, and it deeply troubles them.
Street cops insist that they are "only following orders." Where have we heard that before?
In the anarchy that reigned in New Orleans after the hurricane, it was more often than not legally armed citizens who provided the only semblance of law and order.
There were numerous reports of armed citizens protecting their homes, businesses and neighborhoods from roaming gangs of thugs and looters who were ultimately deterred by the muzzle of a gun or a warning shot fired over their heads.
Where were the police? Some left their posts; others turned in their badges. Some participated in the looting.
As order has slowly returned to New Orleans, those who survived -- many times in homes and businesses that were left high and dry even after the dikes ruptured -- have been ordered out and their guns confiscated.
One Associated Press report noted that "in the city's well-to-do Lower Garden District, a neighborhood with many antebellum mansions, members of the Oklahoma National Guard seized weapons from the inhabitants of one home. Those who were armed were handcuffed and briefly detained before being let go."
Last time I checked, Oklahoma was hard-core gun rights country. I wonder what they'd think about this back home.
According to gun rights legal expert David Kopel, Louisiana law allows for "regulating and controlling" possession, storage, display, sale and transport of firearms during extreme emergencies, but not their prohibition or confiscation.
The law, he notes, does not supersede the state constitution, which says: "The right of each citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged but this provision shall not prevent the passage of laws to prohibit the carrying of weapons concealed on the person."
Traditionally, gun owners have been the strongest supporters of police officers, and that's as it should be. The concern is that the images from New Orleans could irrevocably change that. American citizens who have committed no crime should never be expected to meekly surrender their property -- in this case, firearms -- or their right to have a gun, and subsequently their right of self-defense, just because a police chief says so.
This is still the United States, not a police state.
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