Published: October 28, 2005 10:51 am            

An assault on citizen rights

In New Orleans, legally owned guns taken

It was something we never believed we would see in the United States: Armed police and National Guardsmen taking firearms from law-abiding citizens – at gunpoint.

This happened in New Orleans, beginning about 11 days after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city and other Gulf Coast areas.

Not only did it happen, but the officers and soldiers weren’t very gentle about it.

For whatever reason, local officials decided that even lightly hit residential areas had to be evacuated, forcefully if necessary.

Police entered the home of elderly Patricia Konie, who told them she did not want to leave her home and ordered them out of her house.

She said she could protect her home and possessions with her gun, which police asked to see.

Konie displayed a small pistol in her open palm and a big cop body-slammed her into a wall, took her gun and dragged her outside to be forcefully evacuated.

This happened in America, “Land of the Free.”

Consider that this was a time of terror. Gangs had been roaming the city, looting, vandalizing and mugging innocent victims.

Police protection was almost nonexistent in many sections of the city.

One lawyer tried to call police to report an attempted break-in at his home, but it took him six days to reach police through 911, and then he said they told him they were too busy to come to his home.

He was quoted on CNN saying that if police and Guardsmen tried to disarm him there would be gunfire.

The point is that for many who remained in New Orleans, the only protection was what they could provide for themselves and each other.

Yet New Orleans Police Superintendent P. Edwin Compass said: “No one will be able to be armed. Guns will be taken. Only law enforcement will be allowed to have guns.”

The order to evacuate the entire city came from Mayor Ray Nagin, a long-time opponent of lawful gun ownership.

Could we believe that the mayor used a severe emergency to attempt to achieve what he had been unable to do otherwise?

The right to self-protection is basic for humans. The right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

One might doubt the reports of gun confiscation and brutality if they hadn’t been documented on Fox News Channel and ABC News, both of which were on the scene with their cameras.

What happened to Patricia Konie was captured by Fox cameras.

Other news clips showed Oklahoma National Guard troops aiming combat rifles at New Orleans citizens who were being disarmed, rifles that apparently were loaded and ready to fire.

Were the authorities wrong? U.S. District Court Judge Jay Zainey, Eastern District of Louisiana, said they were, in a decision he issued Sept. 23 in response to a National Rifle Association-filed motion.

The judge not only ordered that the confiscation of weapons from law-abiding victims of Katrina be halted, but that all previously confiscated firearms be returned to their lawful owners.

What happened in New Orleans could happen anywhere in the country under emergency conditions. This is alarming.

As Congress considers relief legislation for the Gulf Coast area, it also should take action to ensure that such assaults on citizen rights cannot happen again.

        

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