In a Crisis: Save the... Guns...??

The stalwart anti-appologists at the National Rifle Association are inflamed at the handling of the New Orleans Crisis. They are absolutely livid with the way that local, regional, and federal authorities dealt with the problem. All those starving people at the Conference Center, the Superdome, the roofs of their houses, locked away from the core bastions of social unity. Food, Water, and Guns.

National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre slammed New Orleans authorities Monday for seizing legal firearms from lawful residents.

"What we’ve seen in Louisiana - the breakdown of law and order in the aftermath of disaster - is exactly the kind of situation where the Second Amendment was intended to allow citizens to protect themselves, " LaPierre said.

"When law enforcement isn’t available, Americans turn to the one right that protects all the others - the right to keep and bear arms," LaPierre said. "This attempt to repeal the Second Amendment should be condemned."

The New York Times reported last Thursday that no civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to have guns, quoting the superintendent of police that "only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons."

A Louisiana state statute allows the chief law enforcement officer to "regulate possession" of firearms during declared emergencies. "But regulate doesn’t mean confiscate," said Chris W. Cox, the NRA’s chief lobbyist.

"Authorities are using that statute to do what the looters and criminals could not: disarm the law-abiding citizens of New Orleans trying to protect their homes and families," Cox said.

"The NRA will not stand idly by while guns are confiscated from law-abiding people who’re trying to defend themselves," he said.

Let's chalk this one up to the typical Conservative method of self-interested organizations with absolute disconnect from the problems in New Orleans. The poverty, the cultural conflict, the vacuous authority in the wake of disaster, the inequalities... The Guns.