Immediately after hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin, along with Police Superintendent Warren Riley, order police and National Guard troops to go about the city confiscating guns from anyone and everyone they saw, a clear violation of the Constitution.
Since that time, the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation have filed a lawsuit to ensure that this never happens again and to return to those citizens the guns they had taken from them. During this entire process, Nagin, Riley and the city attorney Joseph DiRosa have refused to cooperate and have not upheld promises they have made like returning guns to those who can identify them and pass a background check.
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier has lost his patience and ordered Nagin and Riley, named in the lawsuit, to be held in contempt of Court. According to the Times-Picayune, DiRosa claims he has handed over to the opposing lawyers all documents requested. The NRA and SAF say that’s not true.
DiRosa said he has now handed over the information to the plaintiffs, but that did nothing to mollify Barbier. He said DiRosa had caused the plaintiffs to waste time and money, and ordered the city to pay $1,365 to cover what it cost a Second Amendment Foundation attorney to draw up the contempt-of-court paperwork. Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent Warren Riley, named as the defendants in the suit, were not personally penalized by the judge.
Meanwhile, Second Amendment Foundation founder Alan M. Gottlieb denied that DiRosa has handed over anything sought by his organization and the NRA.
Gottlieb stated that he doesn’t think Nagin, Riley and the city of New Orleans understand that these charges are serious.
“seemed to have forgotten that the case involves serious constitutional violations — namely, the city’s move to send police officers and Louisiana National Guard members out in Katrina’s aftermath to confiscate weapons from citizens, in many cases, at gunpoint, without a warrant and without probable cause.”
“Nagin and Riley and every other official in New Orleans who was part of this outrage need to understand that the Constitution may not be suspended in New Orleans or anywhere else by a natural disaster or on somebody’s whim,”
Officials representing the NRA and SAF have not been allowed to view the stash of confiscated weapons but they have heard they are being stored in a container that is leaking water.
Nice!
Tom Remington
