FourByLand said:
I know that in times of chaos such as "Katrina" it becomes pretty hairy and you have to do what you have to for your family...!
We REALLY do not want to embellish on that topic. A good many people in the US don't really know what happened down here (even though some of it was on the news).
We are STILL fighting guns issues in New Orleans (even with the increased crime rates). The other day when President Bush was in town, we had 6 murders ina 12 hr time frame!
Here is a little excerpt from one of our local sporting magazines.
By Gordon Hutchinson
January 29, 2008
You don’t lose gun rights in traffic stop
“Do I look like a thug?”
The gentleman who asked this question was dressed casually and stylishly. He looked like a middle-class male, about 40 years of age. No obvious tattoos, he had short-cropped hair. Tall, average weight, well-spoken, to my eyes he looked like anything but a street criminal, and I said so.
“I travel to New Orleans most days of the week on business,” he said. “There is a certain corner I take every day. I know the intersection is ‘No Left Turn’ from 7 to 9 a.m. each weekday. I know this. I turned left one morning at a quarter to nine, and was instantly pulled over by a marked NOPD unit.
“The female officer got out and walked up to my car, and I told her, ‘I’m sorry. I know better. I simply wasn’t paying attention when I made that left turn.’
“When she asked for my driver’s license, insurance and registration, I told her there was a gun in the glove box, just to warn her. She walked around to the other side of the car, opened the door, opened the glove box and took the gun out. It was a little .25 automatic. It wasn’t even loaded.
“She proceeded to write me the ticket. When she gave me the ticket, she made some sort of quick spiel about where I could come to get the gun back if I brought a receipt for it. I didn’t follow what she was telling me, but she kept the gun.
“When I asked her if she was going to give me a receipt, she told me: ‘The way I look at it, I didn’t know you had it, and you don’t know I’ve got it.’ She left with the gun.”
To condense the rest of the story from the gentleman’s tale, he called a friend in the department who spoke an expletive, and asked for the ticket number on the traffic citation that had been issued.
The gentleman was told his friend ran into the officer about a week later, and recognized her by the name tag on her uniform. When he asked about the .25 automatic, she responded she still had it — she was unfamiliar with the procedures for turning in a seized firearm.
The gentleman informed me he got his gun back. He never found out if any punishment or reprimand was issued to the officer that illegally seized his gun. He never pursued the issue any further — unfortunately. This incident occurred more than a year after Hurricane Katrina.
In the course of research for our book on the confiscation of firearms in the aftermath of the hurricane, we heard a number of similar stories. They all followed the same vein: A citizen is pulled over in a traffic stop. The NOPD officer takes a gun from the citizen, and asks if the citizen has a receipt for the gun. When the answer is no, the gun is seized, and the citizen is informed if they will show up at a specific precinct with proof of ownership, they can have the gun back.
A recent gentleman caller on a New Orleans radio talk show described having a personal handgun seized during a traffic stop. This particular gun was passed down through his family — it was an heirloom — and he wanted it back. This gentleman stated he had placed numerous calls to different divisions within the department, and had been unable to get any information on the whereabouts of his gun.
A local gun store informed me they have had numerous citizens buy guns, only to return and beg for a copy of their receipt to get the gun back after it had been seized during a traffic stop in New Orleans.
Apparently the impending lawsuit by the Second Amendment Foundation and the National Rifle Association seeking redress and return of the guns seized by law enforcement in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has had little effect on the NOPD. If the stories we’re hearing are truthful, the police are still illegally confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens.
I spoke with two separate practicing attorneys — one works for the state of Louisiana and the other is also a commissioned law-enforcement officer. Both stated if the police were taking possession of guns from motorists during any sort of investigation, and the gun was not germane to the investigation, the seizure amounted to theft.
“Armed robbery by cop,” one said.
When I asked a good friend, a retired NOPD officer, about the practice, he stated it was a fairly common practice to take guns from motorists before the hurricane. He said he thought the practice had died out since the hurricane, however.
When I stuttered outrage over this practice, and told him it was illegal, his reply was: “Gordon, I didn’t say it was legal. I said they did it.”
