New Orleans agrees to return weapons: AN OUTRAGE

Lets, instead, trust the good will and the better angels of all the victims to brandish weapons. As it turned out, many people who lived in the SUperDome were mugged and beaten . Imagine if the perps had guns, there may have been a bloodbath.

I dont believe in handing out explosives and caps to people without some sense of proof of intent . Guns are pretty much an unfetterd "own and brandish" commodity.
Guns are just as dangerous as explosives, yet theyre treated with special gloves because some founding fathers had the wisdom to see the world of today, RIGGHT

On the face of it, it does seem rather high-handed, arbitrary and potentially criminal for the police and the national guard to simply confiscate legally held property of a locale's citizens. Contravention of 2d Amendment rights and all that. But Farmerman has an exceedingly valid point -- in the kind of emergency that the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina presented, concerns about public safety trump individual rights. This action was no more outrageous than airport security confiscating certain items from travelers. How dare they take away my jack-knife which I only use to peel apples and clean my fingernails? Well, they sure do dare and I've learned not to carry anything like that in my pocket when traveling. At one point I couldn't even carry my Zippo lighter. It would have been summarily confiscated.

There would have been some dead civil officials floating downstream if I lived there. Funk the nazis. Shootemup.

Regardless of the 2nd Amendment, police have no authority
to rob citizens of their property, regardless of the weather
or of any emergencies.


I respectfully dispute that; can u prove it ?
If u can show that emergencies create political jurisdiction, then please do so.
Even Hitler went to the Reichstag, after the fire, to argue his point.




That 's not what thay have done.
I fly quite a lot and I was faced with this.
What thay DO is tell u
that u cant take that ON THE PLANE.
U r free to make a u-turn and go wherever u wanna go
except on any of the planes.
That 's DIFFERENT than knocking down the door
to your house and robbing u of your guns.

I take issue with use of the word "confiscating" in this context
because it tends to falsely pretend that it is not naked robbery, which it is.
We did not create governments because we wanted to get ROBBED.





David

So if you steal a gun you have a right to keep it?

It isn't exactly bearing arms if you leave your gun in an empty house.

Now they're giving them back.

Why the OUTRAGE?

Why? Because of idiots like you.

The only "stolen" guns are the ones they confiscated. Nobody can ID a stolen gun that quickly, and why were they taking guns out of empty houses? Of course people left their belongings behind. What else did the cops steal?

I didn't see anything in the article about "quickly". Maybe the cops had picked them up on other charges and then took their guns. Maybe they were felons who weren't supposed to have guns. Maybe they caught them stealing the guns. I really don't know and this article doesn't tell me.

They had to do a door to door search looking for bodies. I imagine that's when the guns were picked up. Maybe they should charge the owners for storage.

I don't know if they stole anything else. What has been reported stolen?

People's 2a rights and trust of their government. That's what was stolen.

Boomer, I believe that we need some healthy skepticism here.
Do robbers always tell the truth about their crimes ?

HOW coud the police possibly KNOW
whether the guns were stolen ?
The police were roaming around in a state of chaos.

Their boss, the mayor, openly said on TV (on videotape)
that the citizens woud be robbed of their guns;
(he did not use that exact language).
He spoke with utter contempt for the rights of the citizens
to possess guns -- as if such rights did not exist.




U mean that when I travel, its OK for police
to break into my house ransack it and steal my guns ?
What is the justification for that ?
I have no right to keep guns in my house when it is empty ?
What else do thay have a right to steal, while thay are here ?
What other crimes is it OK for them to perpetrate if the weather is bad ?
While thay are here, is it OK for them to rape my girlfriend,
and justify it by blaming the weather outside ?



That is NOT PLAUSIBLE, Boomer.
There is no way that thay coud have possibly known
who owns a gun when thay find it; it coud have been sold
ten minutes before. Additionally, we have many homeowners
who told of police arriving and just brutally robbing them of guns;
even old ladies.
I 've seen their testimony (videotape) a couple of years ago.




" . . . the right of the people to KEEP and bear arms shall not be infringed."
It IS exactly KEEPING arms.
Anyway, thay have no authority to rob u of ANYTHING.


If John Dillenger gave back the loot from the banks he robbed,
then he shoud be free and forgiven ?
At least HE was not on the public payroll when he committed HIS robberies.
He did it on his own time; so did Willie Sutton.

Because the robbers were on the clock
when thay were robbing the citizens of their guns,
the victims were actually PAYING the robbers to rob them.



The homeowners were brutally robbed of their guns
by the police and left to fight off armed mobs, in a state of helplessness.
The robbers shoud be tried, convicted and incarcerated.
This also applies the mayor,
who was the gangleader of the robbers.
He told them to do it; PUBLICLY.
He belongs in prison.

Think about this, Boomer,
bearing in mind that its not from a TV script,
its REAL.
It happened in someone 's neighborhood, like yours.
The weather gets really nasty n very scary: MAJOR PROPERTY damage.
The police stop making any arrests, for several days.
There is NO law enforcement. This is public knowledge.
We saw the police, in uniform,
participating in the looting on TV.
Gangs of roving criminals are doing everything
that thay want to do, knowing that the police are out-of-business
except for rescues from the weather. Your neighbors are also
aware of this state of affairs. Fortunately, u have guns at home
to defend your family and your property.

Then another gang arrives: the POLICE.
That gang robs u of your only defense and leaves u helpless
to defend from the other criminals.
U just have to take your chances.
That is NOT OK.

At least when John Dillenger fled with the loot,
he did not leave his victims (the bankers) defenseless in
immediate danger of other criminals,
the way that the New Orleans Police did.

This is a very, very serious matter.

If the police had only stolen MONEY,
then it coud be returned with interest; maybe that 'd be OK,
but guns are EMERGENCY EQUIPMENT
upon which citizens rely for their lives.
Its not as if the folks were delayed in going duck hunting.
The point is that thay violated the citizens' right to self defense.
The mayor and the police shoud be very severely punished for that
with heavy fines and long term incarceration.

The police exposed the LIVES of the citizens
who were paying them to death or other abuse
at the discretion of bands of criminals, known by everyone
to be roaming around committing random felonies.

How 'd u feel if thay did that to YOUR family ?

U think its OK to just give the guns back 3 years later,
and just forget about it ? Just forget the crimes suffered
by the disarmed civilians who coud no longer defend themselves ?






David

Tell me, OSD, would you be equally "OUTRAGED" if the police were accused of having "stolen" some kitchen utensils, e.g. steak knives etc.? Or is your righteous wrath reserved exclusively for people who dare touch another's shootin' arn?

As I indicated in my post to Boomerang,
the police have no right to rob the citizens of ANYTHING,
regardless of the weather.

I 'd not be EQUALLY outraged by the larceny of kitchen utensils
because thay are not emergency equipment upon which their
rightful owner relies for defense of his life from predatory violence.

Justice is not being done.





David

I join in your elocution that:
" I like firearms but don't like to kill animals, so I don't hunt . . . "





David

David, I may well be the only person you know who is a card-carrying member of both the NRA and the ACLU. Y'see, I support all the Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, along with the document itself.

You will never succeed in convincing OSD about the validity of securing public safety by suspension of individual rights. When martial law is declared ALL civil rights are often suspended. (Martial law was declared in the case of Katrina-thats a fact jack).

OSD lives in the 18th century and is not part of any sociological trophic web.

Ceej is just bug-**** nuts.

I used to be the only guy in town in both the NRA and Sierra Club. I dropped the Sierra Club on a political endorsement issue. They are both pretty much single interest organizations. Sierra Club mentioned that in a letter. Bonus points of responding, though.

I support the entire Constitution too, even when it's inconvenient.

Tho I have never joined the ACLU, I bear it no ill will.

Tho I have been a Life Member of the NRA for about 50 years,
I challenge some of its positions; I do not believe that the leadership
is doing a particularly good job.



Is this an implicit criticism that I have failed to support
some of the amendments ?

I will confess that if the 18th Amendment were still in effect,
I 'd feel a moral obligation to violate it,
with a vu toward inalienable individual rights;
however, in saying this, I reveal a hypocrisy,
in that I have failed to consume illegal narcotics,
in rebellion against the anti-drug laws.
(I consider those drugs to be poisons,
but I support the right of any citizen to ingest poison,
if such be his choice.)





David

U r correct, Farmer;
not until u show me a competent jurisprudential foundation
for the suspension thereof. Did u find an On/Off Switch
in the a US Constitution ? I did not.


As far as I am aware, thay have as much right to do that as to
rape all the women and to slaughter each firstborn male child,
or as much right as W has to simply remain in office permanently.
If I am mistaken, perhaps u will enlighten me ?
It coud be possible that maybe Timothy McVeigh declared
that he had a legal right to blow up real estate
before he touched off the fertilizer, or Jeff Dahmer might have
alleged legal rights before he went to munching on his loverboys.
I guess that makes it OK.



I guess that is probably true,
in that I have no idea WHAT a sociological trophic web IS.





David