Mid-week, a couple came riding in a boat up Esplanade, the man pushing, the woman riding. LeRoy was on the porch, and recognized them as two teachers he had known at McDonogh High School right down the street. They were coming from the Ninth Ward. She needed to get to the airport she had found out her 16-year-old son had been evacuated to Texas, and her 14-year-old daughter had ended up in Oklahoma.

As LeRoy stood in the shallow water of the neutral ground, talking to them, three thugs waded up. One pulled a pistol and ordered the couple out of the boat, telling them they were taking the boat, but LeRoy
recognized the gun as a fake.

LeRoy pulled his .357 Smith & Wesson revolver from his back waistband, and with a sweeping roundhouse swing, whacked the would-be boatjacker on the side of the head with the revolver.

Stunned, the thug dropped what later turned out to be a pellet pistol in the water, and the three of them ran off. LeRoy retrieved it from the water, and dropped it in his pocket. He would display it proudly months later, a combat trophy from the Katrina Wars.

“I pulled a bunch of quarters, and a five dollar bill out of my pockets, all I had on me at the time, and gave it to them to use for telephones when and if they made the airport.”

“Look,”’ I told them, “‘you can’t do this in daylight; you won’t make six blocks. Go back to McDonogh’ that’s where they had been holed up for the last couple of days — ‘and wait until late tonight —11 p.m. or midnight. Then get your asses in that boat and don’t stop until you make the airport. Move at night, and sleep in the day. Someone will kill you for that boat.’ They contacted me later, told me they had made it out; she got to her daughter.”

LeRoy handed out quarters and small bills to all sorts of people who passed by on their way out of the city. He always gave them something. For months after that, he kept finding dollar bills and coins in his mailbox. People, by and large, are good. Even in the worst of circumstances.

But not everyone.

The police tried to force him to leave, explaining that there had been a "mandatory evacuation order." When LeRoy explained that the mandatory evacuation order was nothing more than the city covering it's ass, they threated to come back with Marines and "make his ass leave." They didn't, but LeRoy watched the police confront a couple across the street.

A group of officers drove up and walked into the yard, aggressively addressing the woman who lived there. When she screamed for her husband, he came running out and they grabbed them both, throwing them in the unit and forcibly evacuating them. LeRoy stood in his yard in helpless rage watching, yelling at them, calling them Nazis and thugs, and anything else he could think of. He was ignored.

“Later that afternoon,” he said, “the cops came back. Drove up in front of that house, got out and walked in. I don’t know what they took, but they came out with garbage bags full of stuff.”

Jerry Loner also had trouble with cops trying to force him to evacuate:

“Look,” they said — their tone was nasty — “you’ve got to go. Get your stuff, we’re taking you out of here.”

Jerry stood up with Mike in his arms, and opened his door.

“I told you,” he said, “I’m not going anywhere if I can’t bring the dog. I can’t just go off and leave the dog to starve!”

“How about we shoot the damned dog,” one of the cops said, “and throw your ass in the ear?”

Jerry stepped inside his house, and slammed the door. The cops left in their car, cursing.

I mentioned the pet situation back at the time on Murdoc Online and was less than kind, so I want to explain my position.

I don't know the specific circumstances of the people that I pointed out in 2005, but I had assumed that they were complaining because they weren't allowed to bring their pets on evacuation buses. Even today, I don't have too much trouble with this. It's all about priorities, and just because you put your pet on a level close to that of other people, don't expect other people to agree with you.

But re-reading the excerpt I posted, I realize something else entirely was going on. Here's what I excerpted:

Shawn Lazana, 36, an artist, and Kay Kennedy, 41, a writer, had been trying to stay in her uptown home when a military unit arrived with automatic weapons to evacuate them. Their street is flooded, and Lazana said he had seen the bodies of an elderly woman and a young child in the water. But they were trying to ride out the hard times so that Kennedy could continue to care for her cats, Armand and Gabriel. "We were basically forced out at gunpoint," Lazana said.

I'll admit that it didn't quite register with me at the time. I figured that the two folks were just bitching because they were unhappy with the bus service out of a flooded city. Today, after reading this book, it's clear that when they said "we were basically forced out at gunpoint," they really were forced out at gunpoint. I now believe that I was wrong at the time to think what I thought. I wouldn't trade my life for that of our family dogs, but I also wouldn't just abandon everything I own, including the family dogs, to the looters if I thought I needed to stay behind and keep watch.

Clearly, this isn't a book just for gun owners and pro-gun activists. No one in their right mind would stand for this.

But, of course, gun issues are the main focus of the book. And what the book reports should make the blood of every gun owner either run cold or boil. Or both.

In spite of the United States Constitution that guarantees the right to keep and bear arms by the Second Amendment, and the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees the safety and protection against unreasonable search and seizure to every citizen, government authorities have now, for the first time in the United States, illegally and irrefutably confiscated firearms from law-abiding citizens by governmental fiat and without due process.

These actions occurred, of course, in the hell that was the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the city of New Orleans.

As documented earlier, New Orleans police and other law enforcement agencies, both state and federal, forced their way into private residences, subdued citizens by force and confiscated legally owned firearms with no probable cause and without powers of warrant. These abuses were perpetrated by government authorities such as the New Orleans Police Department, California Highway Patrol, New Mexico State Police, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, various state National Guard units, and many others too numerous to name.

I won't excerpt any of the specific illegal searches and seizures detailed in the book. You're doubtlessly familiar with some of them. Others you probably haven't heard of, or at least heard the whole story.

I was already worked up about what transpired in New Orleans, but I didn't know the half of it. I've talked with a couple of friends and co-workers about it, most of whom are gun owners and pretty pro-gun, and none of them were really all that aware of what went down. I guess from spending so much time on the internet in the circle of gunbloggers I've sort of convinced myself that everyone knows something about it and most are at least a little troubled. I've now come to the conclusion that most folks are totally unaware of what happened, and even those that are aware of it don't know most of the story and probably aren't worried enough.

Not to sound alarmist, but this was much more alarming than I think I realized.

Again, it was a great read, very informative, and well written. It's pretty matter-of-fact and even-handed, which is to be commended for a book on this topic, particularly given the personal positions of the authors. Pro-gunners to write something so solid yet non-inflammatory is crucial to this topic so as not to dismissed as just "those gun nuts."

I'm hoping to have an interview with co-author Gordon Hutchinson up soon, so keep an eye on GunPundit. In the meantime, read The Great New Orleans Gun Grab and pray that it never happens again.

And, just in case your prayers aren't answered exactly the way you want, be prepared.