I stumble on a video that lasted for several minutes at a pretty cool web site called LiveLeak.com. The video showed several people being interviewed on account of their experiences with having police drop by their homes and demand that they turn over their guns. Pretty scary stuff as they were left defenseless from the thugs roaming the area, right after hurricane Katrina hit.
One very elderly lady said that they were inside her house and all she did was start to show them her pistol when, suddenly, she said, one of them yelled, “She’s got a gun!” The idiots tackled her and took her gun, and in the process they bruised her up pretty badly!
Seeing the video (and I’m sorry I don’t have a link or know just where for you to look for it at the site) made me think that probably most of us would have done what all those folks did when the cops came and knocked on their doors and took their guns away. These folks were good, law-abiding citizens and the officers had no right trampling on their Constitutional rights like that. But do you think you’d be a sport and go along with cops taking your gun(s) away if, God forbid, some type of disaster on the scale of Katrina were to occur where you live?
The NRA ILA (Institute for Legislative Action) has been pursuing the New Orleans government for this in the courts. So far, the New Orleans government has exhibited the classic attitude of “Screw the law, constitution and courts. We’ll do what we like, when we like, and if you don’t like it, tough shit”.
That’s also the problem with gun registration. Where did the police get their lists?
I used to think that the people who buried an SKS in their backyard were a bit paranoid, now I’m not so sure.
I feel no obligation to cooperate with the police if they are abusing their authority.
I like your feisty attitude. It would be great if everyone had it just so the government and cops get it in their heads that this kind of shit ain’t going to fly!
That’s also what wrong with joining the NRA; millions of gunowners in a database, just waiting for martial law and the jackbooted government to seize it and know right where all the guns are.
Would I hand over my guns? No. Would I hand over a gun or two? Probably. Do I hate this Rumsfeldesque method of answering questions? Yes.
Thankfully, I live in a state without registration. For them to have any idea how many guns I could possibly own, they’d have to collect the paper records of every FFL dealer in the state for the past 20 years, and then they’d only have a rough idea.
Sure it’s a fairly safe bet that an NRA member and a CCW holder is going to have at least one, and I’m not going to initiate a shootout with armored stormtroopers (nor do I want to get shot myownself), but how thoroughly are they going to search my house/cars/yard? And in case of a developing emergency like Katrina, most of them aren’t going to be neatly lined up in the pretty wood and glass cabinet.
I wouldn’t trust New Orleans police officers before the hurricane, or during the crisis, or afterwards, so no, I would not cooperate. Give them a few token guns and send them on their way.
The NRA produced a short DVD about the Katrina gun confiscations. It’s only about 15 minutes long, but it’s a good watch. I passed my copy on to others to view and hopefully the word is getting out.
One interesting thing is that the authorities at first took the bizarre position of denying that they confiscated any guns at all. That only lasted for a few days since we all remember the video with the police saying right into the cameras that they were going to take all the guns away, legal and illegal.
At least the NRA is trying to take steps to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. It’s outragious to think that they police would take away your guns just when you need them the most.
You didn’t ask me, but… If I had only one handgun - “Damn officer, I sold that to my uncle in West Dakota. Wouldn’t want a gun in the house with my kids! What are you thinking? Jeez…”
Thanks a bunch, New Orleans. Not only thank you for taking a situation where you could not protect people and removing their ability to protect themselves. But also, thanks a whole bunch for making those of us who try to stay in the center on gun control look like utter idiots. With things like this happening, it gets pretty difficult to argue against the hard liners who maintain that any type of government control of firearms is the first step down the intended road of preventing all private ownership.
I’d claim it was blown away by the wind or something. On the other hand, truthfully, if I saw a group of police officers coming towards my home I probably wouldn’t assume they wanted to take my firearm and wouldn’t have taken steps to hide it.
I’ve never been shy to vocalize just how much I dislike guns. I’ll probably never have one of my own, and I don’t completely understand why so many people feel they need guns for protection in normal life- during a disaster like Katrina, I can understand. I suppose it’s my inner atomic holocaust survivor speaking. I guess I played too much Gamma World as a kid.
Anyway, as opposed to guns as I am, there’s no way in hell that I would surrender my gun to anyone during a Katrina situation. A Katrina situation is the only reason I would have a gun in the first place.
Did they ever say why they were confiscating guns?
I once read where someone said, “I’d rather have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have one.”
I didn’t hear anything about the cops saying why they were taking them away. I’d just guess that a higher-up said the place would be safer. Heck, I don’t know.
My main reaction is, holy crap, the police who were so overwhelmed at the time of Katrina that they couldn’t keep order in the Superdome and stuff, had time to knock on doors and ask people to give up their guns???
Forget gun-rights issues - this is more like writing parking tickets in the middle of a civil insurrection.