Gun sales across the South boomed after the first reports surfaced of armed looters roaming the streets of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. And images of shots being fired at relief workers only elevated fears in some communities.

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Among the good people, he and others fear, is a criminal element that includes drug dealers who have lost their jobs and people who steal for a living. -- Chicago Tribune September 8, 2005 [free registration required]

Police have begun to confiscate the firearms from residents in New Orleans.

Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here. -- New York Times September 8, 2005 [free registration required]

When the floodwaters rushed into New Orleans, the police lost their ability to communicate.

Operation of the New Orleans police radio system in the wake of Hurricane Katrina has been plagued not only by floodwaters but by a lack of natural gas to power generators.

Not only that, Louisiana State Police turned away repair technicians when they attempted to reach the city, according to an on-scene report the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International relayed to Federal Computer Week.

The report, contained in an e-mail Wednesday from Dominic Tusa, a communications consultant in Covington, La., to Willis Carter, chief of communications for the Shreveport, La. fire department said the New Orleans Police Department’s dispatch center on the second floor of police headquarters was flooded. The police were forced to relocate to the nearby Hilton Hotel.

Tusa said the police department’s citywide 800 MHz radio system functioned well during and immediately after the hurricane hit New Orleans, but since then natural gas service to the prime downtown transmitter site was disrupted and the generator was out. Transmitter sites for the police radio system “are also underwater with the rising water and [are] now disabled,” Tusa said. -- Federal Computer Week August 31, 2005 [via Snooker Swamp]

Perhaps their communications have been restored, or at least suplimented by now. However, once they've disarmed you, are they capable of protecting you? And if they cannot protect you, and you cannot protect yourself, then what?

Kim du Toit asks:

Just out of curiosity, if the local law were to disarm me, and I or my family were subsequently robbed or otherwise harmed, would I be able to sue the agency responsible for my helplessness?

Smallest Minority explains here and here that the answer is probably no.

A officer named Paw-paw gives some advice to those having their guns confiscated [found via Geek with a .45].

To those residents who are being affected, take names. Get the names of the officers and their department affiliation. Don't be rude, don't be threatening. Let the officers do whatever it is they might do. If you resist, all is lost.

Remember the words of Robert E. Lee: "No gentleman is rude accidently." There will be plenty of time to be rude later, when you are garnishee-ing the paychecks of everyone involved. The judgements are going to be huge, and those cops will be working for you for a long, long time. Not to mention the considerable cash that you get from the city.

Attend to your safety. Make the officers carry you to a place of safety. They are there, after all, to evacuate you. Don't do anything to jeapordize your safety. Stay safe. You'll soon be rich, and able to buy any gun your heart desires.

Finally, some lawyer types add their two cents at the Volokh Conspiracy, with updated posts and disenting opinions here and here.

Eventually the city of Anchorage [my home] will experience a catastrophic earthquake. Again. I wouldn't want the police demanding I turn over my firearms without some reasonable expectation of safety. Perhaps some folks would resist on principle, and I can understand that. At this stage of my life [active duty Air Force] I'm far more concerned about being the guy tasked with confiscating the weapons of law abiding citizens during an emergency, mere days removed from a period of civil unrest. Out of curiosity, I might ask the Legal Office on Elmendorf some hypothetical questions this week.

And as Eugene Volokh asked:

Is there some implicit emergency exception to the right to bear arms here? On the other hand, doesn't the emergency make the right especially valuable to the rightsholders?

Seems to me that some folks were managing to get by when the New Orleans Police were unable [or unwilling] to protect them.

NEW ORLEANS - When night falls, Charlie Hackett climbs the steps to his boarded-up window, takes down the plywood, grabs his 12-gauge shotgun and waits. He is waiting for looters and troublemakers, for anyone thinking his neighborhood has been abandoned like so many others across the city. Two doors down, John Carolan is doing the same on his screened-in porch, pistol by his side. They are not about to give up their homes to the lawlessness that has engulfed New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

"We kind of together decided we would defend what we have here and we would stay up and defend the neighborhood," says Hackett, an Army veteran with a snow-white beard and a business installing custom kitchens.

"I don't want to kill anybody," he says, "but I'd sure like to scare 'em." -- Smallest Minority]

Bruce at mASS BACKWARDS has another story that might have ended badly if the individuals had not been armed [or worse, disarmed].

Admin note: if I've messed up a trackback to anyone's site, or missed any credit that was due, please drop me a line. This is my first week of blogging, and my first post with links. Thanks for dropping by the site. There's still plenty of work to be done setting things up, so check back as I work out the kinks. Any helpful advice is greatly appreciated. -- jp