Back hand slap from the NRA

[Jim Johnson]

NRA seeks hundreds whose guns were seized after Katrina     

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- The National Rifle Association has hired private investigators to find hundreds of people whose firearms were seized by city police in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to court papers filed this week.

The NRA is trying to locate gun owners for a federal lawsuit that the lobbying group filed against Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent Warren Riley over the city's seizure of firearms after the August 29, 2005, hurricane.

In the lawsuit, the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation claim the city violated gun owners' constitutional right to bear arms and left them "at the mercy of roving gangs, home invaders, and other criminals" after Katrina.

The NRA says the city seized more than 1,000 guns that weren't part of any criminal investigation after the hurricane. Police have said they took only guns that had been stolen or found in abandoned homes.

NRA lawyer Daniel Holliday said investigators have identified about 300 of the gun owners and located about 75 of them. Some of them could be called to testify during a trial, he added.

"Finding these folks has been a nightmare," Holliday said. "That is really the guts of our case -- to establish that there was indeed a pattern of the police going out and taking people's guns without any legal reason to do so."

In April 2006, police made about 700 firearms available for owners to claim if they could present a bill of sale or an affidavit with the weapon's serial number.

An attorney for the city and a Police Department spokesman didn't return a reporter's telephone calls Wednesday.

Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Bellevue, Washington-based Second Amendment Foundation, said the Police Department has returned only about 100 of the 1,000 seized guns.

"Obviously, we don't expect the city to find everybody. We only wanted to see a good-faith effort, and that's what the city didn't do," Gottlieb added. "It's a bad example to let them get away with it."

In court papers filed Monday, NRA attorneys say finding the gun owners has been difficult because the storm has scattered so many residents.

New Orleans had an estimated 455,000 residents before Katrina, but less than two-thirds of that number live there now.

The NRA is asking for a delay in the trial, set to begin February 19, saying they need more time to find gun owners. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier had not yet ruled on the request Wednesday.

[RangerProbst]

Right on.

[Fluff and Stuff]

Go NRA!

[penguins4me]

What I want to know is, why isn't the NRA pressuring the appropriate DA to take criminal action against the Chief of Police and those who followed his orders to disarm peaceable citizens under 18 USC 241??

I'm almost starting to believe that the NRA is pussyfooting around so much because they don't want to put themselves out of a job, as it were.

[KBCraig]

Jim, I'm not sure what you meant by "back hand slap", nor who the NRA is supposed to have slapped. Can you clarify?

[Jim Johnson]

Jim, I'm not sure what you meant by "back hand slap", nor who the NRA is supposed to have slapped. Can you clarify?

penguins4me has part of the answer.

There are a lot of ways the NRA could have gone with it's law suit.  But all the NRA could mustier was to ask for a "good-faith effort".   
"Obviously, we don't expect the city to find everybody."  Why not?  Shouldn't the Police have been recording the address' of every place they stole weapons from. 

Why didn't the NRA bring the law suit to the level of a Civil Rights Violation?  Because if your right to bear arms actually becomes a right the NRA will loose it's control over gun laws.  The NRA fights to maintain it's position as the end all and be all of gun law and will never fight for the right of all people to keep and bear arms.

Members of the NRA saw the theft of weapons in New Orleans as wrong but the NRA's leadership knows that the NRA is a political organization and that it has obligations to the Government.

And thus a watered down law suit... which is a backhanded slap, by the NRA to the gun owners of New Orleans.

[yonder]

The NRA has a long ugly history of compromising our rights away to serve their own interests and increase their own power and influence.

Some of the very laws they should be fighting tooth & nail against are laws that they helped to draft and move through Congress!

There are plenty of other, smaller, RKBA organizations that are far more worthy of your $$$.

For the NRA, this is yet another example of "too little, too late".

[kola]

is anything free from fricken corruption?????????

this world sucks!

Kola

[yonder]

is anything free from fricken corruption???

This sounds like a job for...

[Jim Johnson]

Hey!  That's the poster from Ron Paul's movie 'Enter the Republican'.   

[KBCraig]

Jim, I'm not sure what you meant by "back hand slap", nor who the NRA is supposed to have slapped. Can you clarify?

There are a lot of ways the NRA could have gone with it's law suit.  But all the NRA could mustier was to ask for a "good-faith effort".   
"Obviously, we don't expect the city to find everybody."  Why not?  Shouldn't the Police have been recording the address' of every place they stole weapons from.

Ah, okay. Just wanted to make sure I understood your point.

I am no NRA defender, although I'm a (hesitant) member. I usually take their PR spin in the worst light possible, knowing that they're usually trying to justify raping RKBA yet again.

In this case, I thought they actually did a decent job of saying they had minimal expectations of NOLA.gov, and weren't surprised that Nagan's krew only turned over a handful of names.

I could be wrong. It would be hard for me to be more disappointed in the national NRA organization, so I'm not going to be crushed if I am wrong. Just trying to keep the facts straight.

Kevin

[John Edward Mercier]

I might have been watered down due to the present SCOTUS review of the Second.

[srqrebel]

There are a lot of ways the NRA could have gone with it's law suit.  But all the NRA could mustier was to ask for a "good-faith effort".   
"Obviously, we don't expect the city to find everybody."  Why not?  Shouldn't the Police have been recording the address' of every place they stole weapons from. 

In all fairness, the person who made that statement represents the Second Amendment Foundation, not the NRA.

Why didn't the NRA bring the law suit to the level of a Civil Rights Violation?  Because if your right to bear arms actually becomes a right the NRA will loose it's control over gun laws.  The NRA fights to maintain it's position as the end all and be all of gun law and will never fight for the right of all people to keep and bear arms.

Members of the NRA saw the theft of weapons in New Orleans as wrong but the NRA's leadership knows that the NRA is a political organization and that it has obligations to the Government.

Couldn't agree with you more!

Unfortunately, this is how the State-based anti-civilization works.  Organizations that purportedly exist to protect your interests, actually wield the power of the government to protect their own interests at your expense.  Why wouldn't they?  After all, it is only natural for any entity to act in its own best interest.  As long as government power exists for them to access, one cannot reasonably expect anything but corruption from large businesses and organizations.

Social structures that operate out of sync with the nature of the organism are inevitably doomed to failure.  The only way we can have order and integrity in the social system, is to have a system that operates in harmony with self-interest, which is a key part of human nature.  A Stateless, 100% business-based free market is the the only such system I know of.

...but alas, I preach to the choir

[J’raxis 270145]

The NRA has a long ugly history of compromising our rights away to serve their own interests and increase their own power and influence.

Some of the very laws they should be fighting tooth & nail against are laws that they helped to draft and move through Congress!

The NRA, like the ACLU and some other very large rights organizations, seems to always be in the react-and-compromise mindset instead of taking proactive steps to restore rights already lost. The government takes us five steps toward tyranny, then these types of organizations help pull us four steps back. We still end up with tyranny, just a bit slower.

Whether or not these organizations are actually helping anything at all, or are in fact enablers for the government, is a good question.

[TackleTheWorld]

Look at that, J'raxis is questioning the efficacy of working within the system.  Doesn't it seem plausible that big organizations become big because they play ball with those in power?  If someone was truly poised to take their power away, wouldn't government push them out of the system?