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NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA Guns

By Last Night in Little Rock, Section Huricanes Katrina and Rita
Posted on Mon Sep 12, 2005 at 05:54:53 PM EST
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by Last Night in Little Rock

As previously reported here, the NRA was slow to speak out about confiscation of guns in NOLA. They did today:

National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre slammed New Orleans authorities Monday for seizing legal firearms from lawful residents. "What we’ve seen in Louisiana--the breakdown of law and order in the aftermath of disaster--is exactly the kind of situation where the Second Amendment was intended to allow citizens to protect themselves, " LaPierre said.

"When law enforcement isn’t available, Americans turn to the one right that protects all the others--the right to keep and bear arms," LaPierre said. "This attempt to repeal the Second Amendment should be condemned."

Usually, the NRA is right on this kind of thing. It took them as long to swing into action as the Bush Administration.

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    NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA Guns | 26 comments (26 topical)
    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#1)
    by scarshapedstar on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:44 PM EST
    It took them as long to swing into action as the Bush Administration.
    Yeah, and looking at the skin color of the gun owners in question, I have a theory as to why this is...

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#2)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:44 PM EST
    I wonder how much they are willing to spend on relief efforts. We know that they spend tons on money on rich white people, the question is how much will they spend on relief efforts.
    "We’re exploring every legal option available to protect the rights of lawful people in New Orleans," Cox said, "and we’re taking steps to overturn such laws in every state where they exist."


    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:44 PM EST
    Good for the NRA. They are right. Citizens have a right to bear arms. I'm a strong believer in the Second Amendment. It's only one away from the Fourth.

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#4)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:44 PM EST
    But do you ever think that poor disenfranchised black people will have the same rights to use guns as the base support of the NRA. Of course that is where the NRA steps away. What do you think the NRA would have done if NO was a rich large white suburb where most people had guns and there was shooting and looting? They are clearly using this as PR..... and qualifying it for wingnuts taking delight in the tragedy.
    "and we’re taking steps to overturn such laws in every state where they exist."
    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#5)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:44 PM EST
    A well-regulated militia has the right to bear arms in this country, the definition of which has come to mean anyone and everyone for whatever reason they choose. We are a nation armed to the teeth, that pays in bloodshed far exceeding whatever "protection" we perceive this multitude of private firepower may give us. Believing in a right to bear arms is one thing, but saying it has any logical or historical or even linguistic basis in what is actually WRITTEN in the second amendment is just buffalo chips. After all, the third amendment talks about the issue of housing troops in private homes. That is more related to the meaning of the second amendment than the unfettered access to firearms we have in this nutty nation right now. It's a legal right, not one enumerated in the constitution in any way resembling the "right" we have now. White, black, yellow, green...the glorified position guns hold in our society is wretched. We've let it get out of hand. Period. Guns are out of hand in this country. That's nothing to be proud of.

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#6)
    by roy on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:44 PM EST
    Usually, the NRA is right on this kind of thing.
    When? I'm not blanket defending the NRA -- I wish they'd spoken up sooner and much louder -- but what are we comparing to? People are interpreting the slow response as racist, so when has the NRA responded to a completely unexpected issue any more quickly?

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#7)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:44 PM EST
    Roy-When have we had an unexpected issue like this?

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#8)
    by roy on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:44 PM EST
    Ah, so they're racist because they responsed to the unexpected slower than expected? (Full disclosure: I still can't find a single non-white NRA member or fan)

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#9)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:44 PM EST
    roy-You asked the trick question first.

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#10)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:44 PM EST
    Dadler, I echoed basically the same thing on an earlier thread. What militia? NOLA after the storm is kind of an america with guns redux. It will only empower more people to purchase some "home protection" in case of an attack (overblown fear), or a natural disaster leading to chaos (one so far in 200+ years). But folks needed guns in NOLA, not because of looting, but because they were left to fend for themselves. The looting was a result of the lack of protective intervention on a large scale. That one or two cops couldn't stop it is insignificant.

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#11)
    by bad Jim on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:44 PM EST
    This seems to be the night for gun-toting liberals to declare themselves. Over at Steve Gilliard, in a thread discussing pit bulls, one of the most thoughtful commenters I've encountered described himself as a gun owner and a Second Amendment activist. The first I thought unremarkable, but the second was a surprise; I didn't recall having seen any gun advocacy issuing from that pseudonym. Guns just aren't that big an issue on liberal weblogs. I've got guns, but I've also got a nice selection of wrenches, hammers, saws, machetes, and flags.

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:44 PM EST
    Full disclosure: I still can't find a single non-white NRA member or fan You have now.

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#13)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:44 PM EST
    (Full disclosure: I still can't find a single non-white NRA member or fan)
    Well, you can't have looked too hard then since there are at least two black men on the NRA Board of Directors that I can think of just off the top of my head, Karl Malone and Roy Innis. You would think an organization formed by Union generals after the Civil War and whose most recent past President marched with Dr. Martin Luther King during the 60s wouldn't have to continually answer implications that they are nothing more than a bunch of racists.

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:45 PM EST
    Another liberal gun owner and 2nd amendment activist checking in here. Note: one of the first local gun control measures in the U.S. was in the State of LA and provided that "negros" shall not own or even handle firearms. Gun control is people control. I have taught dozens of people of color how to handle, own, shoot, clean and be safe with firearms. Several of these are in Denver's high crime areas. These are folks with no felonies (otherwise they could not own one), but they are in fear for their families. I donate gun safety locks and the ammo for their first range sessions. An armed society is a polite society. The NRA should have had lawsuits filed as promptly as the ACLU would have, by the way. This is a day late and a dollar short. In truth, these cases would be the PERFECT mechanism to go on up and get the 5th circuit 9th circuit split on the individual right question resolved. We see now why there is a need for individual gun owners to have personal and individual rights. When the looters and rape gangs were raging, and the N.O. cops were either overwhelmed or (as I hear it) unable to communicate with each other because their fancy new radio system's transmitter towers were underwater, those people had only themselves to depend on. Note: I've voted against more democrats than I've supported lately, because of the gun issue. I'm not a single issue voter, but this one is important.

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#15)
    by roy on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:45 PM EST
    Car Rowan, Jr. is one more black NRA board member. Of those I could easily find pictures of, three board members look black and 71 look white. I count Ted Nugent as double-white, so 3 / 72 = 4.2%. It's an elected position, without any racial gerrymandering like in government elections. Congress is about 8% black, for comparison. Dunno what it means.

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#16)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:45 PM EST
    If "gun control is people control", why do we have the most violent, murderous society in the industrialized world. We're a bunch of cowards, more afraid of our government than a nut with a gun. The question is how can America claim to be the best in the world when we have so many citizens living in the underclass, ignored, exploited, and left to die? And a gun society is a polite society? Tell that to anyone in the middle east. Or the inner city?

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#17)
    by roy on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:45 PM EST
    If "gun control is people control", why do we have the most violent, murderous society in the industrialized world.
    If you only look at two variables, you're going to get weird results. England: strict gun control, low violent crime. Washington DC: strict gun control, high violent crime.
    We're a bunch of cowards, more afraid of our government than a nut with a gun.
    If you have a gun, you don't need to be afraid of a nut with a gun. (kidding)

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#18)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:45 PM EST
    Roy, Sure, no one with a gun has ever been killed by another person with a gun. Look, bro, I don't like the culture of firearms, I find it depressing and fatalistic. And if you think comparing DC to England is in any way analogous, when DC is AWASH IN ILLEGAL GUNS, then we have a disagreement of chasmic proportion. We have allowed our nation to become saturated with firearms. And we pay for it. If you want to make analogies, or point out the lack thereof, then point out how the U.S. is larger and more heterogeneous than other industrialized nations -- which is a factoring truth, as opposed to comparing gun control in England and Washington DC. The citizenry in the UK don't have any DESIRE to flood their nation with guns like we have. Sometimes, in other words, the free market comes with a heavy toll.

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#19)
    by cpinva on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:45 PM EST
    Good for the NRA. They are right. Citizens have a right to bear arms. I'm a strong believer in the Second Amendment. It's only one away from the Fourth.
    that raises two questions for me: 1. do you believe every right ennumerated in the constitution is an absolute right? if so, how to explain 200 hundred years of SC rulings to the contrary. 2. what "well regulated militia" do you belong to? if you do not belong to a "well regulated militia", and don't believe that should adversely impact your ability to own a gun, explain why you believe the authors of the constitution wasted space inserting that line into the 2nd amendment to begin with. acceptance to the law school of your choice is predicated upon your responses to those questions.

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#20)
    by roy on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:45 PM EST
    ...and, even if our gun fetish is a Bad Thing, surely letting the government pretend to have more authority than it has is not the right approach to reducing it.

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#21)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:45 PM EST
    Don't progressives have enough strikes against them by their "liberal" stances on things like reproductive rights (pro-choice) and equality (gay rights)? I just don't understand why liberals want to alienate people with gun control. IMO, that's just more discredited "nanny stateism" of the 80s', not too dissimilar to the culture warriors that want to outlaw or regulate "violent" games and movies. I also admire the spunk of the NRA standing up for its rights. I wish the "druggies" had made as big a stink about the 4th amendment as gun owners did about the 2nd, all that hairsplitting about "well regulated militias" aside.

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#22)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:45 PM EST
    I do not think the slaves were included in the right t bear arms. A well "well regulated militia" will always trump those who also claim to be entitled to carry arms. In the homogeneous (no people of color included even though there were many) setting that existed during the writing of the amendment the right would only be applicable for those fighting against the enemy, Native Americans, Slaves, and 'bad guys' couldn't have been who they were describing by the words "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms".

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#23)
    by cpinva on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:45 PM EST
    I just don't understand why liberals want to alienate people with gun control. IMO, that's just more discredited "nanny stateism" of the 80s', not too dissimilar to the culture warriors that want to outlaw or regulate "violent" games and movies.
    i believe you've contradicted yourself. "nanny statism" would, by definition, include the government deciding what medical procedures (abortion) you may or may not have, as well as who you may or may not marry (gay rights). further, i see no exemption for gays, express or implied, to any of the rights currently ennumerated in the constitution. please so identify where this exemption is to be found.

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#24)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:45 PM EST
    If "gun control is people control", why do we have the most violent, murderous society in the industrialized world.
    That's an easy one. We have the most FREE the most OPEN and the least draconian society in the world. When the government keeps its boots off of the citizens' necks, it tends to enable those on the fringes to operate more freely than they can in a totalitarian state. I assure you, just take away the Bill of Rights (or even a couple of them), and the resulting expansion of governmental power to pry, enslave, and crush the "bad elements" (while, alas, smashing lots of the rest of us in the process) would very much lower the "official" crime rates here. But I'd rather have to deal with a more free, albiet slightly more violence prone, society as compared with a police state with "perfect order." This is the same as I'd rather deal with a more free society that allows abortion, albiet at the cost of troubling issues where, predicabally, some will use abortion as birth control, as compared to a society where women are denied that right. Welcome to freedom. That is what it looks like.
    We're a bunch of cowards, more afraid of our government than a nut with a gun.
    Did you know that something like 200 MILLION people have been killed at the hands of their governments in the 20th century alone? Governments are by definition formed and operated by those who enjoy weilding power. Most of our governmetnal systems, all over the world, are designed to try and constrain that power from being exercised arbitrarily and capriciously. I believe that gun ownership is a "check" of last resort in this regard. Someone once said, we have the following options, in this order, to protect ourselves from government abuses: The soap box; the ballot box; the jury box; and the ammo box.
    The question is how can America claim to be the best in the world when we have so many citizens living in the underclass, ignored, exploited, and left to die?
    Because, quite frankly, sometimes we socially engineer things to be that way, intentional or not. I'm like Mickey Kaus in this regard. I was "converted" in my way of thinking by the success of welfare to work programs in Oregon and elsewhere. What these programs are showing is that we don't help the people mobilize upward in the society when we keep them loaded with incentives to do nothing. We can be compassionate and intelligent progressives at the very same time we recognize that _some_ part of the category of "poor and downtrodden" are there becuase of choices, decisions and voluntary actions of THEIR OWN. Its better for us to help the rest, and to try and work on the attitudes that lead people to that "place." What the hell does this have to do with gun control anyway?
    And a gun society is a polite society? Tell that to anyone in the middle east.
    Pulease. Where the guns can help, they do. A friend of mine visited an Arab christian family in northern Israel some time ago. They kept UZI guns in a bucket by the door, much as we would use umbrellas. And it is very rare for people to burst into each others' houses over there, precisely because of this. (In England, on the other hand, where gun possession has been nearly fully outlawed, "hot" burglaries -- i.e., burglars breaking into occupied homes, beating up the occupants, raping the women and taking the stuff, are UP, UP, UP every year since gun control was instituted). But back to the M.E., the bigger violence issue is bombs and cross fire in active insurgent/military battles. War zones are war zones. (Most other M.E. countries ban guns for everyone except for the ruling elites, by the way, so check your facts).
    Or the inner city? Most of the worst inner city areas have VERY strict gun control. Chicago. Detroit. Washington D.C. Las Angeles. All are NOT armed societies. They are criminal empowerment zones, in which the thugs know that the only folks with guns will be them and their friends, and maybe the once police officer per 10000 people employed in the area. We disarm the "good" folks, and force them to "do nothing." The criminal element arms up anyway. I assure you: Arm those single mothers in those projects, teach them to defend their famlies, and put the good guys on an even playing field, and something amazing would happen: There will be an initial short period of bloodshed when the good guys and the bad guys tangle. But the indominable truth is that there are more good guys than bad guys, and the result will be that the criminal elements will be brought into check. But, it will never happen. Our country would rather continue to have those folks be victims.

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#25)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:46 PM EST
    M_L-The least draconian and free open society in the world? Ever been to Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland or Canada? The most free society, possibly, if you are an affluent white male, and ranking yourself. We rank #15 as a free Democracy, and are sinking fast. linked text

    Re: NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA (none / 0) (#26)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:47 PM EST
    M_L-The least draconian and free open society in the world? Ever been to Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland or Canada?
    Top ten gun owning countries by percentage of households with guns: United States 39% Norway 32% Canada 29.1% Switzerland 27.2% Finland 23.2% New Zealand 22.3% France 22.6% Australia 19.4% Belgium 16.6% Italy 16% Interesting that 4 of the 7 countries you named as superior in free democracies also make the top ten on gun ownership (Sweden comes in at #11 with 15.1%). Of course those numbers are ten years old and are based on Martin Killias 1993 study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Also worth noting that despite a high percentage of households with guns, several of those countries don't seem to share anywhere near the violent homicide rate that the U.S. does.

    NRA Finally Speaks Up on Confiscation of NOLA Guns | 26 comments (26 topical)