I was listening to the radio this morning and someone made the claim that guns were confiscated and not returned by authorities during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Googling this yields a bunch of posts from the usual suspects. Is there any truth to this claim?
Thanks,
Rob
Katrina was how many years ago (seven or eight) and the NRA hasn’t been beating the gun confiscation drum at all? :dubious: Does not pass the smell test.
What you read on the whack job sites was probably seriously distorted, but there is some truth to it. Police did seize a bunch of guns (between 500 and 1,000 depending on whose news source you read) that they claimed were stolen or found in abandoned homes. The NRA filed a suit claiming that the city violated its citizen’s constitutional rights. The suit was settled in 2008 with the city basically relaxing the proof of ownership requirements to allow people to get their guns back.
Here is the AP article describing the suit settlement:
Wikipedia link:
An almost effortless search reveals the NRA filed a federal lawsuit, which settled.
So yes, authorities did confiscate guns after Katrina.
ETA: Ninja’d.
I checked the NRA website, they haven’t mentioned it there since the 2008 election. It’s just another BS talking point for them IMO; the local police took some guns that were laying around in devastated/abandoned homes in a disaster area under martial law; what were they supposed to do with them?
Did you also read the wikipedia link? The relevant portion of that page provides:
*Confiscation of civilian firearms
Controversy arose over a September 8 city-wide order by New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass to local police, U.S. Army National Guard soldiers, and Deputy U.S. Marshals to confiscate all civilian-held firearms. “No one will be able to be armed,” Compass said. “Guns will be taken. Only law enforcement will be allowed to have guns.” Seizures were carried out without warrant, and in some cases with excessive force; one instance captured on film involved 58 year old New Orleans resident Patricia Konie. Konie stayed behind, in her well provisioned home, and had an old revolver for protection. A group of police entered the house, and when she refused to surrender her revolver, she was tackled and it was removed by force. Konie’s shoulder was fractured, and she was taken into police custody for failing to surrender her firearm.[79][80]
Angered citizens, backed by the National Rifle Association and other organizations, filed protests over the constitutionality of such an order and the difficulty in tracking seizures, as paperwork was rarely filed during the searches. Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association, defended the right of affected citizens to retain firearms, saying that, “What we’ve seen in Louisiana - the breakdown of law and order in the aftermath of disaster - is exactly the kind of situation where the Second Amendment was intended to allow citizens to protect themselves.” The searches received little news coverage, though reaction from groups such as the NRA, the Second Amendment Foundation, and Gun Owners of America was immediate and heated, and a lawsuit was filed September 22 by the NRA and SAF on behalf of two firearm owners whose firearms were seized. On September 23, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana issued a restraining order to bar further firearms confiscations.[79]
After refusing to admit that it had any seized firearms, the city revealed in mid-March that it did have a cache of some 1000 firearms seized after the hurricane; this disclosure came after the NRA filed a motion in court to hold the city in contempt for failure to comply with the U.S. District Court’s earlier order to return all seized firearms. On April 14, 2006, it was announced that the city will begin to return seized firearms, however as of early 2008, many firearms were still in police possession, and the matter was still in court.[79] The matter was finally settled in favor of the NRA in October 2008. Per the agreement, the city was required to relax the strict proof of ownership requirements previously used, and was to release firearms to their owners with an affidavit claiming ownership and a background check to verify that the owner is legally able to possess a firearm.[81]
Louisiana legislator Steve Scalise introduced Louisiana House Bill 760, which would prohibit confiscation of firearms in a state of emergency, unless the seizure is pursuant to the investigation of a crime, or if the seizure is necessary to prevent immediate harm to the officer or another individual. On June 8, 2006, HB 760 was signed into law.[82] 21 other states joined Louisiana in enacting similar laws. A federal law prohibiting seizure of lawfully held firearms during an emergency, the Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act of 2006, passed in the House with a vote of 322 to 99, and in the Senate by 84-16. The bill was signed into law by President Bush on October 9, 2006.[83]*
Again, yes, authorities did confiscate guns after Katrina.
Not sure if its part of the OPs question or not but -------- a lot of firearms were found in or out of houses during the clean-up and basically trashed/recycled. I don’t know if any attempt was made to find and notify the owners or not and both modern and antique pieces were just stacked for melting. Not all had visible water damage. I saw some of that when I went with a church group during recovery efforts and some mention was made in the Discovery/History special on the clean-up efforts.
And yes, it was tempting but ------- the penalties for trying to remove anything from the disaster area were such that I don’t know anyone who tried it.
You’d look less foolish if, instead of your nose, you used your eyes (and a search engine) to examine the evidence.
just came across this and had to reply… here is one video showing that YES, gov’t DID seize all guns, even from law-abiding citizens. This was just a test. here is the link: Katrina Door to Door Firearms Confiscation - YouTube
Testing what? The issue was asked and settled. Did you even read the thread or are you just fishing for views of an old video?
Reported as possible spam. (Major Rick)
Can’t anybody just write down their rants, arguments, or manifestos nowadays? Does everything need to be a goddamned YouTube video?
No, many people today cannot process written information, they have to watch a goddamn video in order to learn something.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be a YouTube video, there are other video sharing sites out there. 
Okay, so a number of firearms were confiscated - approximately one thousand.
Some people are saying these were abandoned firearms that were found in empty houses. Other people are saying these were firearms confiscated from people. I’m going to assume it was probably a mixture of both of these.
Does anyone have an objective cite as to how many firearms were taken in total and how many of that total were taken from people?
I couldn’t agree more.
The confiscation is even more scary because it occurred in Louisiana. It’s one of the most friendly states for gun ownership in the country. For gun confiscation to occur there should give everybody pause.
Just imagine this was a gun hating state like California or New York.
Then again, the local authorities did not just up and do it one fine morning like all others because it caught their fancy. As I understood it, the deal was that the authorities took the Louisiana law regarding states of civil emergency that DID include authority to impose restrictions on possession, transportation or use of firearms during the emergency, to mean unlimited authority to forbid any firearms not in the authority’s hands. The later court settlement and legislation clarified that the authority was not unlimited nor did it extend to outright confiscation. The emergency, however, did exist.
My more cyincal side wonders if historically in a place like Louisiana that sort of interpretation was expected to be used against a certain kind of people in a civil emergency. Even setting that aside, in a relatively high-crime city as NOLA it would not be surprising if the LEAs develop a presumption that armed people in the street are up to no good, disaster or no disaster.
I am in California. Some or all of mine might be lost to the earthquake. Or lost in the flood.