Gun seizures in Louisiana

I apologize to my loyal readers (all three of you) for the lack of new posts over the last couple of weeks. It seems that, with actual work to do for school, I haven't had the time to peruse all the news and post relevant items here (like I could when I was actually working full time before August). (Funny how that works, isn't it?) At any rate, graduate school is going fine--in fact, I'm getting a bit of practical experience thanks to my Public Personnel Management class (I'll expound on this in a new post, hopefully tonight). But first things first:

I've been meaning to research the alarming phenomenon of gun confiscation in Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. I noticed reports of law enforcement taking firearms away from people during evacuations and afterward during the looting and lawlessness, but I haven't taken the time to do any deep digging. In any case, the fact that this is happening is appalling. Today the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation filed motions in federal court to try to stop these seizures. From the Washington Times:

New Orleans Police Superintendent P. Edwin Compass III "completely overstepped his bounds ... when he announced two weeks ago in the New York Times that only law-enforcement personnel are allowed to have weapons," Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the 3-million member NRA said in an interview yesterday.
...
SAF founder Alan Gottlieb called the gun seizures "outrageous" and "illegal." He said New Orleans officials have refused to tell gun rights groups why they are now leaving citizens, already devastated by the Category 4 hurricane, "defenseless against lingering bands of looters and thugs."
...
Mr. LaPierre noted TV news coverage showing law-enforcement personnel going door-to-door to seize guns from New Orleans-area residents -- an action he said is unprecedented in U.S. history. The NRA official said he's talked to "hundreds of people who are enraged" about the new policy.
Given the lawlessness in New Orleans, residents who remain in the storm-ravaged area there need their guns for protection, said Mr. LaPierre.
"Things are worse at night, and people say their gun is the only source of comfort they have, the one thing they can depend on to save themselves and their families," Mr. LaPierre said, noting that a "third of the New Orleans Police Department walked off their jobs" during the Katrina emergency.

They're setting a frightening precedent. I'll close by simply echoing Charlton Heston's famous sentiment: "They can have my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead hands."

I'll say.

Labor Day

This blog has been down for about a week because my template fell victim to some kind of bug. I corresponded with Blogger.com about it, but they weren’t able to recover it. So I’ve lost all my links…I’m working on rebuilding all that stuff, so if you were linked from my site before (or if you’d like to be linked now), please shoot me an email or a comment with your URL so I can add you again (in case I forget).

In the meantime, we’ve had the horrible devastation of Hurricane Katrina, and on a positive note, the Crimson Tide opened the season with a 26-7 win over MTSU. To make the day even sweeter, Clemson topped Texas A&M, TCU upset Oklahoma, and Georgia Tech put the farmhands in their place with a 23-14 win over AllBarn.

On the academic front, UA closed at noon last Monday because of the hurricane, so I didn’t have class that afternoon. The University was closed on Tuesday as well, so I didn’t have to go down and work; instead, I used the opportunity to get ahead on my reading for class—and on Wednesday, I was very well prepared. (In fact, I can’t ever remember having read everything I was supposed to for class. I guess it’s good to be coming back to school after maturing a bit in the “working world.”)

So I’m spending Labor Day reading for this week’s classes, and piddling around the house (washing clothes, further organizing the basement, and blogging)…