Outrage of the Week Disarming Americans

Bumper sticker wisdom, like literary cliché, often becomes overused because it is true.

Saying of the day: If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

Yes, it's a cliché. But it's also very true (if simplistic) and it's currently nowhere more true than in New Orleans, Louisiana.

As if the atrocities committed upon that dingy city by Hurricane Katrina, government officials at all levels, and its own haywire citizens running amok following the hurricane weren't enough, the local police superintendent has now announced that no civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry firearms of any kind.

The only apparent exceptions to the official order are security guards who have been hired to protect businesses and other private property; a police spokesman said he is aware of the private guards but that the police have no plans to confiscate their weapons.

So apparently the only citizens who have the "right" to protect their own property with firepower are those who are financially flush enough to hire other people to wield the guns for them.

To a governmental mind, this policy must make sense: "People are committing crimes with guns, so we need to confiscate all the guns. Only by taking people's guns away will we be able to control gun crime."

What they ignore, of course, is the fact that those bent on committing crimes with guns are not likely to voluntarily quit carrying their firearms. Every crime that can be committed with a firearm or other weapon is already against the law. It would make much more sense if the New Orleans police -- and all other law enforcement organizations -- would concentrate on fighting existing crimes, enforcing the existing laws rather than creating new ones by outlawing gun possession.

In disarming people who have committed no crime -- and who own their firearms legally -- the police are creating new enemies and robbing themselves of valuable allies in the struggle against mayhem in New Orleans.

As a press release from the Gun Owners of America noted, there have been many reports of gun owners defending themselves against armed intruders and looters -- many of whom were released from local prisons by so-called public servants.

Using their constitutional right to own and bear arms, these people protected themselves rather than relying on a police force that was in disarray.

And how are they thanked by bureaucrats in the city of New Orleans? They find themselves vilified by a police state intent on criminalizing those who defend themselves. The police in New Orleans (as in many other American cities) have proven that they aren't capable of protecting the citizenry -- witness murders, rapes and various other violent crimes in the Superdome, which was set aside as an official safe area -- and they now want to ensure that the citizens aren't able to defend themselves, as well.

New Orleans' law-abiding citizens have suffered enough. They've been hit by mighty winds, by flooding caused when ill-maintained government-funded levees broke, by opportunistic looters who roam the streets looking for unprotected homes, and by a government that has turned away assistance from many sources.

That's not enough for the police: They want to strip Second Amendment rights from the city, to disarm the citizens and ensure that New Orleaneans aren't able to hold onto what little they still own.

And that's an outrage.

© Copyright 2005 National Libertarian Party