That Time Legally Owned Guns Were Confiscated When George W. Bush Was President

Republicans are waiting for Barack Obama to confiscate their guns. Any minute now, he’s going to pounce. Obama must be waiting until the day before he leaves office to grab all of your guns, and on the way out he’ll show you his middle gun grabbing finger.

The GOP has been sending emails seeking donations by selling “I miss W” T-shirts and mugs and yet, it was under George W. Bush that weapons were literally confiscated.

When Katrina hit New Orleans, P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of the New Orleans police, said:

…that after a week of near anarchy in the city, no civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns, or other firearms of any kind. “Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons,” he said.

That order apparently does not apply to the hundreds of security guards whom businesses and some wealthy individuals have hired to protect their property. The guards, who are civilians working for private security firms like Blackwater, are openly carrying M-16s and other assault rifles.

Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons.

New Orleans has turned into an armed camp, patrolled by thousands of local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, as well as National Guard troops and active-duty soldiers. While armed looters roamed unchecked last week, the city is now calm.

Imagine if this happened under Obama’s watch:

…private security forces already had boots on the ground. Some, like Blackwater (which has since redubbed itself Xe), were under federal contract, while a host of others answered to wealthy residents and businessmen who had departed well before Katrina and needed help protecting their property from the suffering masses left behind. According Jeremy Scahill’s reporting in The Nation, Blackwater set up an HQ in downtown New Orleans. Armed as they would be in Iraq, with automatic rifles, guns strapped to legs, and pockets overflowing with ammo, Blackwater contractors drove around in SUVs and unmarked cars with no license plates.

“When asked what authority they were operating under,” Scahill reported, “one guy said, ‘We’re on contract with the Department of Homeland Security.’ Then, pointing to one of his comrades, he said, ‘He was even deputized by the governor of the state of Louisiana. We can make arrests and use lethal force if we deem it necessary.’ The man then held up the gold Louisiana law enforcement badge he wore around his neck.”

It was just ten days after Katrina hit that the New York Times reported that police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here.

But at that point,  the city was calm with no signs of looting — although it was a problem previously. “New Orleans has turned into an armed camp, patrolled by thousands of local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, as well as National Guard troops and active-duty soldiers,” the Times reported.

School shootings weren’t an issue back then. Domestic terrorism paled in comparison to the present time. And yet, Republicans “Miss W.”

We can’t even have a civil conversation about background checks, gun control or even mention ‘gun violence.’ Or American’s ‘gun culture’ because if you do, you must want an all out ban on firearms.

Sure, it wasn’t Bush directly who confiscated legally owned firearms, but Blackwater was sent there by his administration. New Orleans became a police state. I didn’t hear him objecting while corpses rotted in the streets.

Please vote in November.  Wait — I said that too nicely. Get off your sofas and get to the polls, dammit. Or do you “Miss W,” too?

Lest we forget, “Heck of a job, Brownie.”

Image: Getty

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