Gun confiscating mayor of N.O. will return seized guns to owners

[progunner1957]

NRA has negotiated an agreement with New Orleans regarding the firearms seized from lawful owners during and after Hurricane Katrina. The issue is pending before the federal court in the case NRA v. Mayor Ray Nagin.

On March 15, 2006, lawyers for both sides informed the court that positive settlement negotiations were occurring. After months of stonewalling, the city of New Orleans has now admitted that it holds a number of firearms, and that owners of firearms which may have been confiscated may contact the Property and Evidence Division of the New Orleans Police Department in any of the following ways: by telephone, at (504) 658-5503; by mail, sent to: New Orleans Police Department, Property and Evidence, 400 North Jefferson Davis Parkway, New Orleans, LA 70119; or in person at the same address.

Please be patient as records are incomplete, and the police are currently understaffed. Records are most accessible if you can supply your gun's serial number. Claims can be made based on proof of ownership, or, lacking such documents, an affidavit that the item belongs to you. For those who go through the above process, whether successfully or unsuccessfully, NRA would be interested in hearing your comments on what occurred. Please contact NRA Grassroots at 800-392-8683 or by email at https://secure.nraila.org/Contact.aspx.

 

[asknight]

Yep, I figured the NRA would cave in and settle with them rather than pursuing the felony charges to a conviction. Now N.O. can say they aren't guilty of a damn thing, and the people will have to go through three years of trying to get their property back. How long do you think it will take the city to give someone's property back with just their "affidavit of ownership", without a serial number? The city will say they'll have to hold on to the property for X months or years to make sure no one else claims the same property.

I told myself I was going to wait until this case is settled to see how the NRA handled it, before I made up my mind in renewing my lapsed NRA membership. It's looking like I won't be renewing. If they can't handle a very clear case of felonious theft and rescinding of RKBA by a city, then what exactly CAN they handle?

 

[kel]

We still lost

The police still have the ability (right really given their thinking today) to confiscate and harass people without fear of retribution. NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Until the police are made accountable for their actions and breaking the law nothing will change. The laws for them and the laws for us must be made the same.

The NRA failed completely and betrayed gunowners by not seeing this to it's proper conclusion.

 

[yucaipa]

I figured the NRA would cave in and settle with the scumbags rather than pursuing the felony charges

Yup the next time the NRA runs for reelection of NO DA's office,the LA. AG's office and /or appointment as a Federal prosecutor,I am going to vote against them.

 

[beerslurpy]

This isnt quite the loss you imagine it is.

Note that New Orleans has been forced to admit that it violated people's civil rights in seizing the weapons without a warrant or just compensation. Remember that violating readily recognizable constitutional rights is the quickest way for a civil authority to lose qualified immunity for their actions.

Having a public admission that abuses took place is a huge <hit> to NOLA's credibility and a huge boost to the credibility of anyone accusing the civil authorty of similar abuses. And there are at least 1000 people who got their guns taken. Probably many thousands more that were subject to involuntary evacuation or various physical harms.

The lawyering has just begun in NOLA.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Yep, I figured the NRA would cave in and settle with the scumbags rather than pursuing the felony charges to a conviction.

This is a civil case. The NRA does not get to bring felony charges. The most the NRA could do would be to assist someone who had a cause of action to file a complaint with the local police or the FBI. It would then be up to the local prosecutor or federal prosecutor to pursue that avenue.

Criminal and civil matters are two different things. Look at OJ, won in criminal court and lost in civil court. Likewise, settling in civil court means nothing in criminal court unless the settlement includes an agreement to drop/not bring criminal charges.

Second, the only thing that has happened here is that the city of New Orleans is in negotiations with the NRA and SAF to return firearms to their rightful owners. This doesn't mean that the civil suit is over.

As for the "NRA has betrayed us" hype, let me just say that I am always pleased to see the traditional criticism of one of the only two RKBA organizations to even try to do anything about the Katrina debacle. Has SAF betrayed us to since they are working hand in hand with the NRA?

 

[swampsniper]

Serial number? I doubt that one in ten of average gun owners even knows the guns exact make and model, let alone the serial number. No matter how NO handles this, a bunch of folks will get screwed over.

 

[garyk/nm]

What, they didn't give receipts for confiscated property?
Without doing so, haven't they opened themselves up to any and all claims of loss?
I know, of course they didn't give receipts; they had no intention of ever returning the guns. If they say they have 1000, they probably took 3000.

 

[Zundfolge]

We still lost
The police still have the ability (right really given their thinking today) to confiscate and harass people without fear of retribution. NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Until the police are made accountable for their actions and breaking the law nothing will change.

What went down in NO is a wakeup call ... if after the next major disaster police start confiscating arms they better have a couple of units of National Guard backing them up because I dare say that much of the armed populace will simply refuse to hand their guns over (and some will be more likely to just open fire than before).



Now I wonder what condition those confiscated arms will be in? My guns are always cased, cleaned and oiled ... I imagine the confiscated ones are all thrown in a bin together sans case (after police report numbers are carved into their frames) so they aren't going to be in the condition they where taken in.

 

[antsi]

Asknight and Kel,
man, you guys need to switch to decaf.

What kind of outcome would you consider acceptable here? Public hanging of Ray Nagin?

What gun rights organization is doing a better job of responding to the NO debacle than the NRA?

Is there anything that is actually possible that the NRA could do that you wouldn't consider a "betrayal?"

 

[k_dawg]

Continue the suit. Don't "settle". Demand that the police in court document every single firearm taken. Enter them all into the court record.

Insist on an official apology to each and every person. And just compensation.

 

[Robert Hairless]

...

I told myself I was going to wait until this case is settled to see how the NRA handled it, before I made up my mind in renewing my lapsed NRA membership. It's looking like I won't be renewing. If they can't handle a very clear case of felonious theft and rescinding of RKBA by a city, then what exactly CAN they handle?

As someone who is an N.R.A. member, pays his dues, and contributes substantial additional money every year, you have my apologies for my organization not giving you the kind of free ride that meets your high standards. The N.R.A. and the people who pay to support it might need to show greater concern for ungrateful freeloaders.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Continue the suit. Don't "settle". Demand that the police in court document every single firearm taken.

They aren't settling the suit. They are having "positive settlement negotiations". There is a big difference between that and settling. In the meantime they are establishing a process for gunowners to get their firearms back that is effective right now.

The suit isn't over by a long shot yet; not that this has stopped a lot of people from jumping to conclusions and blaming the NRA (which is especially ironic considering how few RKBA groups stepped up to do something in this blatant gun grab).

We don't even know what the final settlement deal (if any) will be other than gun owners will be able to get their guns back now and already people are crying "betrayal". Seriously, has anybody here ever heard of the "Boy who cried wolf?" You can't hardly read a thread on any major RKBA issue here going back the last three years without finding accusations that the "NRA is betraying us!" and even after that proves to be totally false you seem the same members echoing the cry on some new issue.

 

[Lupinus]

right, they caved settled and didn't do a damn thing.

<Grammaw's broom>

Without the NRA pushing this not a single gun owner would be getting any one of their guns back if nola even admitted to having them.

You don't win a war instantly, you win it in a progressional series of battles and this is a won battle in a long, long war that in many places is going our way with few exceptions.

 

[jamz]

High Road, guys, High Road. No need to advocate hanging or torture of people.

-James

 

[mrmeval]

The NRA is the big 800lb gorilla.

The NRA is the big 800lb gorilla.

But it has to eat ... a lot.

So it won't do what you want because it might mean that the NRA isn't needed anymore and then that big 800lb gorilla will starve to death. That would be a terrible thing, starving to death.

I personally would prefer more smaller vicious organizations that don't eat quite so much and didn't have an overwhelming need to perpetuate their existance.

Thankfully Indiana now has lifetime carry, the NRA was uninterested in the issue so our local bulldogs got busy.

 

[Powderman]

The police still have the ability (right really given their thinking today) to confiscate and harass people without fear of retribution. NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Until the police are made accountable for their actions and breaking the law nothing will change. The laws for them and the laws for us must be made the same.

And, I think we have a new record....

Gratuitous cop bashing by the third post in an unrelated thread!

Strange how many folks are so quick to bash cops in NO--but conviently forget the hundreds--if not thousands--of police officers who came from all over the country ON THEIR OWN DIME to work--sometimes without compensation--to attempt to save lives and afterward recover the dead.

I personally know cops who live in NO, who lost everything they owned. I say again--EVERYTHING THEY OWNED. They put on what they could, uniform or not and went to work. One guy I know lived out of his patrol car for a MONTH. He had NOTHING else--only one or two changes of clothes.

But I'm sure that someone else will say, "pooh-pooh, they're still jack-booted thugs, trampling on our rights!" Horse manure.

And now, it's back to my corner. Raw turnips and undercooked broccoli to those who bash indiscriminately like this.

(By the way, if you haven't eaten this combination--don't. There will be hideous gastrointestinal distress. )

 

[Robert Hairless]

Continue the suit. Don't "settle". Demand that the police in court document every single firearm taken. Enter them all into the court record.

Insist on an official apology to each and every person. And just compensation.

It's probably possible for the police to provide the serial number for every seized firearm in its warehouse. Two or three people could do that for 1,000 guns in a few days. That list could be entered into the court record in no time at all. Of course then there will be a public record of those guns and their serial numbers. Would that be a good thing?

Do you think a civil suit would--or could--result in an order that the defendants issue an official apology to each and every person? If so, how would such an apology be of practical benefit to any of its recipients?

How would you establish "just compensation" for a year's loss of use for each firearm? If a firearm cost $300 fifteen years ago and has a depreciable useful life of ten years, what would "just compensation" be to its owner who had it seized on August 30, 2005, and had it returned on August 30, 2006? According to my seat-of-the-pants calculation he should receive $0.00, give or take a few cents.

The N.R.A. and the S.A.F. might be able to argue some other theory for determining what you call "just compensation" but a monetary award has to be allowed by law, awarded by the court, and based on some reasonable method of determination. Not all guns are worth the same amount, of course, and most guns are expected to last well over ten years. So maybe a few owners of the 1,000 recovered guns could get in the range of $5-$10 for their loss of use. Even if everyone got paid something like that the total cost to New Orleans wouldn't be more than $5,000-$10,000--although I don't believe it would be anything so large, if it's anything at all.

Why bother. Why trivialize a real victory by proving that it has a paltry value?

My recollection is that in this suit N.R.A. and the S.A.F. asked for remedies appropriate to the nature of this civil suit, including return of the wrongly- confiscated firearms. They got those remedies. The N.R.A. and S.A.F. won that suit. Nagin and New Orleans lost that suit.

Some folks seem dissatisfied that there wasn't a trial followed by a public hanging, or maybe the hanging first and the trial afterwards. But both are unlikely scenarios. The defendants offered the N.R.A. and S.A.F. what they sued for. If they turned down such a settlement, forced a trial, and weren't awarded more than the defendants offered before the trial, the court would likely flay the N.R.A. and S.A.F. into teeny little pieces and order them to pay the defendants' costs.

They would have turned victory into defeat, which is not usually considered a good outcome.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I didn't see anything in the "settlement" about penalties for Nagin or New Orleans.

 

[Lupinus]

<Grammaw's broom>

HHey I put it nicly and without even cussin

 

[beerslurpy]

Standing wolf, that is a completely different trial. There was no possibility of penalties at this stage. It was just a contempt order for violating a restraining order. The judge might choose to impose his own personal penalty for contempt, but that isnt likely since they are complying with his court order now.

 

[antsi]

-quote----------
even after that proves to be totally false you seem the same members echoing the cry on some new issue.
----------------

Boy, ain't that the truth.

When they were trying to pass manufacturer liability protection the first time, and Feinstein was trying to attach AWB renewal to it, all these folks were screaming that the NRA would betray us, and cut a deal with the devil (Feinstein). When the NRA said "no dice" and killed their own bill to prevent AWB renewal from being attached to it, I didn't exactly see these guys lining up to admit they were wrong.

When the NO gun confiscations first went down, these guys were screaming "where is the NRA?" Now the NRA takes them to court, gets the guns back, plus a public admission, and these same people are calling it a betrayal.

It is literally like arguing with a paranoid psychotic. No matter what facts arise to refute their delusion, they can come up with a new, even more elaborate delusion to account for them.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

So it won't do what you want because it might mean that the NRA isn't needed anymore and then that big 800lb gorilla will starve to death. That would be a terrible thing, starving to death.

You know, every time I see this argument I point out that the NRA makes roughly $90-120 million a year on the non-political, just-organizing-shooting-matches side of the house. By comparison, the NRA-PVF, NRA-ILA, and associated lobbying groups have spent something less than $16 million since 1989.

Yet despite repeatedly making this point, I don't ever recall anyone explaining exactly how the NRA is going to "starve to death" on its meager $90 million a year if it doesn't get that extra $1 million a year in political lobbying contributions. Yet the same people keep bringing up this argument... maybe one of you could elaborate on this theory?

 

[Robert Hairless]

Whenever I read carping, critical, unhappy, frustrated messages like many of those posted in this thread, I think of Graham Greene's short story, "The Destructors."

It used to be taught in some high schools and colleges. In case you haven't read it, or haven't read it recently enough to remember it, you might enjoy reading it for the insight that destruction is some people's art form.

 

[mrmeval]

maybe one of you could elaborate on this theory?

Explain what the NRA did in Georgia wrt conceiled carry.