Thread: Did the Second Amendment wash away, too?

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/12731059.htm

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.
Dave Workman is senior editor of Gun Week.
Dave Workman is senior editor of Gun Week, a newspaper owned by the Second Amendment Foundation. www.gunweek.com

a closer look needs to be given to the FOOL who gave the order in NO. He seems not to under stand:
Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

what is so hard to understand here ?

Originally Posted by Charlesoakisland

a closer look needs to be given to the FOOL who gave the order in NO. He seems not to under stand:
Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

what is so hard to understand here ?

I wonder if Judicial Watch is going to take this one on. I bet they do. It seems that they are a group to protect the Citizens rights.

Originally Posted by Scubayons

Originally Posted by Charlesoakisland

a closer look needs to be given to the FOOL who gave the order in NO. He seems not to under stand:
Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

what is so hard to understand here ?

I wonder if Judicial Watch is going to take this one on. I bet they do. It seems that they are a group to protect the Citizens rights.

send them an email and get them fired up.

Originally Posted by Charlesoakisland

Originally Posted by Scubayons

Originally Posted by Charlesoakisland

a closer look needs to be given to the FOOL who gave the order in NO. He seems not to under stand:
Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

what is so hard to understand here ?

I wonder if Judicial Watch is going to take this one on. I bet they do. It seems that they are a group to protect the Citizens rights.

send them an email and get them fired up.

Just finished sending the a letter on this?

Originally Posted by Scubayons

Originally Posted by Charlesoakisland

Originally Posted by Scubayons

Originally Posted by Charlesoakisland

a closer look needs to be given to the FOOL who gave the order in NO. He seems not to under stand:
Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

what is so hard to understand here ?

I wonder if Judicial Watch is going to take this one on. I bet they do. It seems that they are a group to protect the Citizens rights.

send them an email and get them fired up.

Just finished sending the a letter on this?

Great. you do good work

Then why dident they stop the animals from looting the gun stores?

I would almost put odds on this having something to do with violation of rights.

Leader of New Orleans Police Resigns
NEW ORLEANS - Police Superintendent Eddie Compass resigned Tuesday after four turbulent weeks in which the police force was wracked by desertions and disorganization in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath.

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"I served this department for 26 years and have taken it through some of the toughest times of its history. Every man in a leadership position must know when it's time to hand over the reins," Compass said at a news conference. "I'll be going on in another direction that God has for me."

As the city slipped into anarchy during the first few days after Katrina, the 1,700-member police department itself suffered a crisis. Many officers deserted their posts, and some were accused of joining in the looting that broke out. Two officers Compass described as friends committed suicide.

Neither Compass nor Mayor Ray Nagin would say whether Compass was pressured to leave.

"It's a sad day in the city of New Orleans when a hero makes a decision like this," said Nagin, who appointed Compass in mid-2002. "He leaves the department in pretty good shape and with a significant amount of leadership."

New Orleans evacuees at a shelter in Baton Rouge disagreed over the chief's legacy and whether he should have resigned.

"It's about time," said Larry Smit, 52, who owns a construction company. "Get rid of all of them. They ain't doing anything."

But truck driver James Dordain, 41, said Compass had been doing a good job with an understaffed department and faced with an unprecedented natural disaster.

"They pushed a good man to the breaking point," said Dordain, referring to other government authorities. "When they came, it was really too late."

The mayor named Assistant Superintendent Warren Riley as acting superintendent.

Lt. David Benelli, president of the union for rank-and-file New Orleans officers, said he was shocked by the resignation.

"We've been through a horrendous time," Benelli said. "We've watched the city we love be destroyed. That is pressure you can't believe."

Benelli would not criticize Compass.

"You can talk about lack of organization, but we have been through two hurricanes, there was no communications, problems everywhere," he said. "I think the fact that we did not lose control of the city is a testament to his leadership."

But in fact, chaos reigned in New Orleans as Katrina's floodwaters rose. Gunfire and other lawlessness broke out around the city. Rescue workers reported being shot at.

At the height of the Katrina chaos, Compass fed the image of lawlessness in the city by publicly repeating allegations that people were being beaten and babies raped at the convention center, where thousands of evacuees had taken shelter. The allegations have since proved largely unsubstantiated.

Ronnie Jones, a former Louisiana state police officer and a criminal justice instructor at Tulane and Southeastern Universities, said communication and transportation problems after the storm forced commanders on the ground to operate without any direction from above.

"In the midst of that, I think any chief would have had trouble dealing with things," Jones said. "In a crisis you have to coordinate forces. I don't think he had the resources, the radios, the communications to do that."

Compass, 47, was appointed by Nagin in 2002. He graduated from the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., and holds graduate degrees from Loyola University and the Senior Management Institute at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School.

Earlier in the day Tuesday, the department said that about 250 police officers â€â€

He should have been fired before he resigned.