By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
After meeting last week with Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, New Orleans officials quietly removed the 1,000-foot gun-free zone they had established illegally smack dab in the middle of the city’s popular French Quarter.
“I had a productive meeting with NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick and District Attorney Jason Williams, and Councilwoman Helena Moreno on Thursday in which I shared my concerns. They are working on a solution that would comply with the law,” Murrill said in a short statement following the meeting.
What Murrill told city officials is not exactly known. She is in Milwaukee this week attending the Republican National Convention and is unavailable for comment, according to her spokesman, Lester Duhé, who added that the Attorney General will always defend Louisianans’ Second Amendment rights.
A story published last week revealed how city officials redesignated their Eighth District police station – which is located in the middle of the French Quarter – as a vocational technical school, so that everything within a 1,000-foot radius of the new “school” became a gun-free zone, including more than five blocks of Bourbon Street.
Who will actually attend classes at the new “school” was not specified. New Orleans Police recruits are trained at the police academy, which is located at a different facility. However, city and police officials claimed some of the recruits would take at least one class in a small room at the new “vo-tech.” No classes were planned for civilian students.
Threat continues
Dan Zelenka, board member of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and president of the Louisiana Shooting Association, was among the first to notice that officials removed the French Quarter gun-free zone from the city’s online zoning map.
“The zoning map, which had been modified July 1 to add the French Quarter gun-free zone, was changed for a second time in 10 days. They removed the school zone they had placed there on July 1,” Zelenka said. “Whatever happened in her meeting, they changed the map, which is important. The map is a requirement to prosecute under the school zone.”
Zelenka and the Louisiana Shooting Association are not dropping their guard. He has heard that the city is considering partnering with an actual school, which they would host at the Eighth District police station.
“If they do that, we might have a problem,” Zelenka said. “If they partner with an actual school and that actual school holds classes there, that might be upheld as a school zone – notice the word might.”
New Orleans has a history of infringing upon the Second Amendment.
New Orleans Police officers aggressively target concealed carriers, including tourists, and after Hurricane Katrina devasted large portions of the city, NOPD officers went door-to-door confiscating legally owned firearms from city residents – a clear violation of the Second, Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
The threat, Zelenka said, is far from over.
“It is a very Democratic anti-gun council, mayor and police department, so it will never be done. I can promise you they are likely to try to legislate something next year. They will probably attempt another go around. We don’t think the issue will ever be over,” he said. “This will be an ongoing issue because frankly they just want to stop and frisk people in the French Quarter.”
The Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project wouldn’t be possible without you. Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support pro-gun stories like this.
