My problem was not when police entered houses in the flooded areas and in areas obviously hard hit. The problem I have is when people high n dry, with enough food and water to wait out the crisis were subjected to gun confiscation. The first video from ABC world news shows them hand cuffing people in wealthy high and dry areas, taking their guns and leaving them defenseless. The 58 year old lady also was dry, had food and water and a means of defense yet was subjected to what we can see on the video. I don’t see what is irrational about not wanting to leave your house and or wanting to defend it when you are not under water and have supplies enough to weather out the crisis. Call me irrational then, because if I hade food water and a gun and was not underwater, I would have been one of them who opted to stay with my house and belongings.

But then again debating weather or not police followed illegal orders is really moot because of the verdict in the lawsuit proves that guns were taken illegally and in order for that to have happened the illegal orders given by the New Orleans chief had to have been carried out.

I also have to disagree that there would be ample time for police groups to take legal avenues to quash illegal orders to perform illegal actions. It took years to win this lawsuit and that’s with two large organizations behind the plaintiffs. The thought of my well kept (some expensive) guns rusting away in a bin somewhere while lawyers are arguing, leaves the state time to entrench itself on its position. It also leaves us with no means to fight a corrupt government that took the guns in the first place (the original reason for the second amendment).

The very definition of a corrupt government is that they don’t follow the rule of law. I guess only time will tell if all this will play out the way you predicted or how I did. I just hope we don’t end up in another revolution. Thank you again for allowing myself and others a venue to voice their thoughts.

Keep up the good work!

~Brogan

I was long since familiar with your Katrina links. What you have to remember is that cops had been shot at, and were entering homes that were supposed to have been evacuated and might have been occupied by looters when they entered, so it’s no surprise that they did so with guns ready. The 58 year old lady gets my sympathy as much as yours, but when she appeared to act irrationally (in refusing to leave a danger zone) and then picked up a gun, I can’t blame the cops for grabbing her and forcibly disarming her. I’m older than she was, and I know how fast that revolver can start to speak.

The other links, I do not find persuasive. The “Police Abuse Investigation” guy was clearly intent on provoking a confrontation and did so (watch the surveillance video carefully and listen carefully, folks) and it appears to me that when the cop cuffed him, he threw himself at the glass window (maybe harder than he intended), giving himself a bump on the head that frankly earns no sympathy from me.

The “Shot Protester”lady who pretty much begged the cops to nail her with rubber bullets, doing the attention-hound thing in front of the cameras to get the 15 minutes Andy Warhol promised us all, was interfering with police officers in the lawful performance of their duties. She knew what they would have to do. She got the attention she wanted. End of story.

In the “Untold Story” link you posted, one of the complainers said, “They treated us as if we were in a third world country,” or words to that effect. After the Hurricane hit, it did indeed bombard the community back into the “third world,” and the rescuers acted accordingly. Unable to determine who was a looter, who was a nutcase, and who was a good guy, they had to assume the worst. I do not see any evidence there of cops going door to door solely to confiscate firearms.

Brogan, we both agree that the topic under discussion is whether American police would just go door to door and illegally confiscate firearms if a new Administration passed new legislation that criminalized the possession of them. We’ve each explained our positions here in depth.

There would be ample time for police groups to take legal avenues to quash illegal orders to perform illegal action. That time was not present in the unusual circumstances that surrounded Hurricane Katrina, and that among the other things I’ve explained is why I don’t think cops nationwide would carry out an illegal order from DC to confiscate ordinary people’s guns, absent the sort of unusual and rare circumstances that came together in New Orleans.

Finally, America’s police chiefs have seen what happened to the New Orleans chief who gave the order, and don’t want to be the next “bad example.”

Cordially,
Mas