Five years later, no accountability for post-Katrina gun grab

   Five years ago this weekend, Hurricane Katrina slammed into southern Louisiana and Mississippi, devastating the City of New Orleans, killing hundreds of people and setting the stage for an outrage that still angers American gun rights advocates.

   In the days after Katrina hammered New Orleans and adjacent St. Tammany Parrish, an order was issued that only police would be allowed to have guns. Law enforcement personnel from various other states, as far away as New York and California, along with National Guard troops came in to help restore order. In the process, many citizens’ firearms were seized, sometimes at gunpoint, and invariably with the use of intimidation.

   Into this mess stepped the Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association – and nobody else – to put a stop to the seizures, and a federal court judge quickly took action. The incident that crystallized this fiasco was the confrontation between New Orleans resident Patricia Konie and a group of California Highway Patrol officers that was captured on camera by a San Francisco film crew.

   Konie did not want to leave her home and her pets, she was in an area left high and comparatively dry, she had plenty of food and water, and she had an old Colt double-action revolver, which she showed to the cops to demonstrate that she would be safe. What happened next left the firearms community furiously insisting that Konie was safe from everyone but the cops who body-slammed her to the floor of her own kitchen, then led her out of her home, both arms held by officers. Her gun was never recovered.

   Bellevue’s Alan Gottlieb, executive vice president and founder of SAF, was astonished when New Orleans police officials announced, “No one will be armed, we’re going to take all the weapons.” His reaction at the time: “They can’t do that!”

   An ABC news report noted that often after their guns were seized, residents were allowed to remain in their homes, even though the whole escapade was premised on the notion that citizens were being “encouraged” to evacuate.

   Five years, and to this day, nobody has been held accountable for that gun seizure order. Gordon Hutchinson and Todd Masson collaborated on a book, The Great New Orleans Gun Grab – Descent Into Anarchy, which detailed the confiscation effort.

   The other day, Gottlieb recalled that the cooperative lawsuit was a sensible move because both organizations immediately took action independent of one another, and when each learned what the other was up to, it seemed the logical decision to join forces and resources. NRA News dispatched a film crew to the city, and reporter Ginny Simone’s documentary should be required viewing for anyone who ever uttered “It can’t happen here.”

   Attorneys Stephen Halbrook in Virginia and Dan Holliday in Baton Rouge were retained to mount the legal battle, coordinating with NRA’s Legislative Counsel Christopher Conte, all of whom performed brilliantly. Faced with that kind of legal muscle and the fury of two national gun rights organizations, one might think the city would have said “Oops,” and offered a mea culpa. Instead, the city denied for months that any guns had been confiscated, even though by then, investigators hired by SAF and NRA, along with Simone’s news crew, had documented the seizures. And there was that incriminating ABC News video.

   It was only as Halbrook and Holliday were preparing to file a contempt motion with the court that the city’s attorney acknowledged that there were “some guns” being held. Holliday and Halbrook both later estimated to this reporter – in separate conversations – that more than 1,000 guns were stored rather shoddily inside cargo containers, where they had been allowed to irreparably deteriorate.

   After the city acknowledged it had the guns, former Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration continued to make it difficult for people to reclaim their firearms. The court eventually did order the city’s attorney to pay some of SAF and NRA’s legal costs out of his own pocket.

   So, readers may wonder what any of this has to do with WashingtonState. We don’t have hurricanes. Anybody remember the Columbus Day Storm of 1962? How about the December 2006 storm that clobbered the Puget Sound region? For years, the state has been warned that one day we will experience a major earthquake. Don't forget Mount Rainier.

   After Katrina, the NRA mounted efforts in several states to pass legislation forbidding the kind of warrantless gun seizures ordered in New Orleans. Presently, SAF is suing in North Carolina to nullify an emergency powers act that allows the governor or local officials to suspend gun rights outside of someone’s home in a declared emergency. Washington has a similar statute, which this column has discussed here.

   NRA and SAF have teamed up occasionally since Katrina, and have yet to lose one of those cases. They beat the 2005 handgun ban in San Francisco. They beat the Seattle parks gun ban, which the city has stubbornly appealed. Both groups sued Chicago over the handgun ban, with the Supreme Court ultimately choosing SAF’s McDonald case for review, but allowing NRA’s attorney ten minutes to argue during the McDonald orals this past March.

   Yet there remains that one “loose end” in the Katrina case: Who issued the confiscation order? The gun seizures were initiated without warrant or probable cause. They were conducted under color of law. That sort of thing should never have happened on American soil. It better never happen again.

And Don’t forget to visit:

KeepAndBearArms.com

GunVoter.org

OpenCarry.org

GunDigest.com

Hunting-Washington.com

GunnersLair.com

TheHighRoad.us

Northwest Firearms.com