WASHINGTON (AFP) — The National Rifle Association (NRA), the powerful US gun lobby, has reached an agreement with federal and local authorities on reuniting gunowners with weapons lost or confiscated during Hurricane Katrina, officials said Thursday.
The agreement came in response to a September 2005 lawsuit filed by the NRA on behalf of gun-owning citizens of New Orleans, Louisiana -- the US city hardest hit by the devastating storm and subsquent massive flooding in August-September 2005.
In its lawsuit, the NRA condemned what it said were draconian measures authorities enforced in areas hit by Katrina, in what the gun group suggested were misguided efforts to maintain law and order.
"Defendants responded to this crisis in part by ordering that the law-abiding citizens be disarmed, leaving them at the mercy of roving gangs, home invaders, and other criminals," the lawsuit said.
"Defendants had no lawful authority to order the wholesale confiscation of firearms from citizens who lawfully possessed such firearms in their homes or who were lawfully carrying such firearms."
In exchange for dropping the lawsuit, the NRA received guarantees that gun owners would be allowed to meet laxer standards to prove ownership when reclaiming their weapons, since some documents like receipts and other papers containing gun serial numbers might have been destroyed or swept away in the floodwaters.
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