after hurricane katrina hit new orleans residents found themselves without jobs without homes and without their guns many locals had to turn over their weapons to the all forty's in a time when chaos was breaking out when they feel they needed their guns the most artsy correspondent pre-history there has a story. it's a sunday afternoon in louisiana i just came out here to shoot practice. and guns are a blazing at this shooting range. thanks to our forty percent i believe everybody should have the right to defend themselves at any cost in this part of the united states the right to bear arms is part of everyday life i believe part and have the right to shoot for ask questions later. been robbed at gunpoint before and i know what it's like i believe that. living in america maybe said we

should be able to carry a handgun but that wasn't always the case so what do you do. so we take any weapons . richard stiring and his friend wayne shoom were on lake ponchartrain about a week after hurricane katrina made landfall and i had almost the same way of six interest a foot of water in the house. but it was still there they went to styron's house to get his things we heard of the. stuff that was going on in the wall and all the shooting and the people that were getting heard some killed from what i've been told. while heading back across the lake the pair was stopped by law enforcement and asked to give up their weapons. from your order your private property. don't have any right taken here. as the hurricane took the city by storm residents felt their constitutional rights were being blown away the armed populace keeps

a government in check the government should not be in charge of the populace the populace should run the government at whatever the government has the guns and the populace doesn't have the guns the government does what it wants in the aftermath of katrina new orleans was in complete chaos law enforcement couldn't handle all the problems and on streets like this one every single building with looted except for one occasion is pa as they are three smith and wesson club action shotgun twelve gauge semi automatic joe in guido's is the owner of cajun's pub she decided to take things into her own hands there was vans with. them and they were breaking into any businesses where there's no sign of anyone around and that they didn't mess with us here because i stood out front. with my shocked we don't protected her patrons when law enforcement was nowhere in sight after guarding her pub for about a week decided to evacuate u.s.

marshals came across this in front saw me with my shotgun you know they pulled about a dozen m. sixteen sourness put her body against the wall. took all my weapons and then left she couldn't believe this was happening in the united states i was furious i had no way of protecting myself beyond the physical destruction. they saw their city and even their country transforming before their eyes look at the communist countries look at cuba look at nicaragua look at any country you want to where the government has the guns and the populace is on or and look at how they live and how they're treated it's a story they want remembered so it never happens again preassure either r. t. new orleans louisiana. well prius here in the studio to give us a few more details about this story you break down you know exactly how this happened why law enforcement officials said that they couldn't take away these guns

was it legal well basically alone as you know in the aftermath of katrina it was kind of mass chaos everywhere you know the mayor of the city at the time ray nagin didn't actually call for an evacuation until the day the storm hit and at that point it was kind of too late they hadn't organized a lot of transportation to get people out of the city it was a couple of days before lots of people were getting their paychecks that they simply couldn't afford to leave the city so as a result there were lots of people as you saw in all of the news coverage that were stuck in their homes eighty percent of the city was flooded no martial law was ever declared that's a big misconception a lot of people think that martial law was declared in new orleans at the time that the only one that has the authority to do that is the president of the united states and at the time that was george bush in haiti he didn't do that so instead they declared a state of emergency and in that state of emergency about seventeen thousand national guard troops came to our national guardsmen came to new orleans and they were kind of patrolling the streets trying to keep law and order but what they were mainly trying to do alone is aid in the search and rescue effort so as a result you know in times of chaos in an emergency dogs or looters would start

going around the street you remember all those famous pictures of people carrying cases of heineken down the street because you know they were going into all the businesses and just trying to take whatever they can and looting people's homes so for a lot of people they felt like the only way to protect themselves was to have their weapons and you know they felt like the law enforcement didn't have their backs they had their hands full there was too much stuff going on so they really needed their. guns but then the police superintendent at the time said no one is allowed to have a gun except for the authorities and that's when people started getting really angry they said hey you're going to take our guns away and you're not going to protect us so you know what the heck are we going to do here now it was just. you that had their guns taken away or really was it was across the board we did anyone get to get away with their guns in the hand some people were able to get away and that's kind of the sad thing about it you know it was actually trying to evacuate the city when her guns got taken away from her and she said you know she felt like a criminal she saw these big kind of army guys with their m.

sixteen pointing them at her thing give me your weapons and she said hey i'm not the criminal here why don't you go to the looters and take their weapons but in all they think around a thousand guns were taken and many many of those people like joe and still don't have their weapons back she had thousands of dollars of weapons taken away from her that day watson has been asking me how do they expect to get back to you know when it's a chaotic situation like that i'm assuming that the authorities are just snatching up all the guns they can is there any way to actually you know measure of the responsibility or write down someone's name when schuman richard stier in the two guys that were on the boat you know they asked the authorities give me a receipt so that i can at least get my weapon back later and be authorities said hey you know we don't have time to go around and write up receipts for people so actually the n.r.a. and the second amendment foundation filed a lawsuit against the city of new orleans and back in two thousand and seven it was ruled that you know what the city did was wrong and they had no right to kind of take these weapons away from people but unfortunately you know there was no law and order at the time as you saw and so

a lot of these people simply haven't gotten their guns back. you know in situations like that when a natural disaster strikes when chaos is about i think it's really hard to keep trying and from what some of the research that i was ready to do. in fact in the state of louisiana there's no such thing as martial law on our books it's only a state of emergency you know in which case. the the states troops and police could actually take away the guns that once the federal national guard came in that's when all the lines. now new orleans is perhaps an extreme example chaos was a bound thanks to the devastation of hurricane katrina but there are other examples that we can look to that might tell us you know that america could be close to becoming a police state examples that shine a light on the notion that a law enforcement treats its own people as an enemy joining me to discuss that is

retired special operations master sergeant and military blogger jim hansen jim thanks so much for being here first of all you know in light of this katrina story what are your thoughts on that do you think that it was ok that they started taking done so i mean why do you if you know they had crossed the line in the sense that it was the federal troops that were taking them away and it was just the state police knew the ones any good i mean i think there was a reason that really works the laws that were written especially well in the state of emergency they have no right to supersede the constitution you know that i mean there's nothing they can do there so new orleans was wrong they lost their lawsuit properly and even the federal troops short of martial law being declared by the president have no right to do anything like that at all. as pretty mention the second amendment foundation sue d'orleans they're also suing the state of north carolina who has a law on their books a state law that says whenever their governor declares a state of emergency it is then illegal to carry

a gun or ammunition anywhere in the state you know if it's if it's state wide i mean that's ridiculous is there a time you need to go in more the more the state of emergency you know you saw there was looting there was violence there was everything going on the police response was to disarm the citizenry it's outrageous now you know what i find interesting here is that often i feel like there are certain set. americans that they talk about states' rights that talk about the federal government imposing on those rights and yet here you find this funny tricky situation where perhaps it's up to the state themselves to the governor declared a state of emergency and then they come crying back to the federal government that they want that they actually want the federal government to supersede all of our well i think there's a couple cases about ten of them where they took the time to write some extra provisions that the states could not take away from the federal government speech religion in the first amendment and number two was the right to keep and bear arms and it says a well regulated militia now the definition of militia in that case was

all able bodied males from eighteen to forty five and even went further the reserve militia included women children old people and the reason for that was they knew they were going to be times where hate maybe the canadians are going to invade we went after repel them or what if there's an emergency such as this and you need someone to provide security and in that case those are the folks you want providing security you want them to own their own weapons you want them to know how to use them and you want them to be there to go ahead and oppose looters to oppose those who are tearing the place up and the idea that a state then would supersede the constitution no we only do the federal government the only one who can supersede the constitution and they better do it very often now can you think of other examples you mention north carolina but you know other states where this is happening where perhaps a state of emergency was declared when it really wasn't selling when essentially the people that we can be treated as is the enemy well i'll give you an example of when the right to keep and bear arms work pretty well if you remember the rodney king riots they were outrageous l.a.

was in flames everything was torn up there was absolutely no authority anywhere except for one place there was a collection a large collection of korean shops where they were getting looted and the reason one of those korean immigrants had served in the military career has universal draft so everybody served in the military in korea they had emigrated here and they had a very strong response to people who decided to loot and there are. some amazing video of people attempting to go into those shops and the christian shop owners coming out with weapons and repellent and that they would have been victims you know in a situation like happened in new orleans or as in the case where the north carolina losses those people would have just been victims had their property stolen potentially their lives taken away so i think the constitution was written up held in the in the heller mcdonald cases where now it's legal to carry legal to own guns and that right is incorporated to the states meaning they cannot supersede it just by state feel that's right and you know we've discussed that a lot here especially in terms of chicago on this show but i want to segue

a little bit here because you know what i see often too is in instances like this sure that there is chaos going on but essentially it's the government treating their own people like the and trying to encroach upon them and there's an example that really shocks me last week. that i write about when it comes to tell foreign aid other western states where the fedoroff already apparently now it's legal for them to sneak onto your driveway attach a g.p.s. device to your car and then they can track you wherever you go whenever they want and it's you know is not is that sign that we're entering a getting closer to a police state that that scares me i don't like that oh i have to hate it and i think that's going to be a lot of pushback i know there's already lawsuits against it and i believe that there was one case where they said if you did it one time and just track them one time that's a certain standard but the idea that you're going to leave it on there and then use the collection of things that they did you know they go here too often they go there too often there's

a reason you need the fourth amendment you know unreasonable search and seizure that is absolutely an unreasonable search i don't think there's a whole lot of chance that the american people will put up with much in the way of police state activity were a lot you know more tolerant i guess of namely state activity when you get to the point where the governor becomes that overbearing will push back will vote those people out and will put in people who respect the rights that we have and. in our constitution and all the other laws that govern i hope so i don't i feel like we're not seeing that enough you know i mean it began post nine eleven with simple things like wiretapping these days we have american citizens on assassination lists these were things that in my mind definitely need to stop jim thanks so much for being here all right still to come on tonight's show a new study says the drinking good for you so stick around to find out why hitting the sauce might make you live longer and he complained about the insane power point presentations used by the military and the war in afghanistan now he's being sent home i'll speak with colonel lawrence selland in just a moment. hungry

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this next story made me in the staff here very happy apparently if you drink that you are going to live longer so bell you have to allow his bar so you can get all the details the new study published in the journal of alcoholism finds that those who abstain from drinking have a higher mortality rate than heavy drinkers the study says that moderate drinking which is defined as one to three drinks per day is associated with the lowest mortality rates in alcohol studies c. for years it's been reported that red wine helps improve your heart's health and circulation less aren't we all just a little more fun we have a glass of wine in our hand at a party but why do people who don't drink have

a shorter life that doesn't seem to make any sense but the study says that many of those who abstain come from a lower socio economic class let's face it bar tabs are expensive and can get you in trouble but people of lower socio economic status usually have more stress in their life from jobs to childcare worries so you're not getting those stress reducing benefits that you normally would if you had a drink or two now a study which lasted over twenty years found the mortality rates were highest for those who had never ever been drinkers and only second highest for the heavy drinkers and of course lowest for the moderate drinkers and that is really shocking to me that even heavy drinkers outlive those who say no to alcohol now researchers believe the drinking helps ease people into social settings and that social interaction is a very important part of maintaining health and physical health mental and physical health so i gotta say is take it from professor alona don't binge drink but do

enjoy your life with a cocktail or two and you should be just fine. now last week we told you the story of colonel lawrence salat sixty one year old army reservist from new jersey who has served in both iraq and afghanistan sellon was working in afghanistan on the staff of the international security assistance forces joint command an organization that was formed to oversee the wars day to day operations and yet according salan the organization has grown into a stove pipe and bloated one top heavy in rank and a scathing op ed he wrote he claimed that for headquarters staff war consists largely of the endless tinkering with powerpoint slides to conform with the idiosyncrasies of cognitively challenge generals in order to spoon feed them information those are all his words so since that off it colonel sellon has been fired citing his failure to comply with the nato directive which is that he had to

clear written or oral presentations to the media through a designated public affairs officer but the funny thing is that cell and had been writing opinion pieces for the entire two months he was in afghanistan so why was it this one got him fired where earlier i caught up with u.s. army reserve colonel lawrence ellen from afghanistan and i first asked him what compelled him to write this specific piece. there are there are there are several triggers i would say they're. there to cause me to think about it eventually write something about what what i was doing i think that was the first also a personal frustration about. volunteering for this for service here and true to my own not really having any duty is to speak of. there are you going to request. twice. for my superiors to have

to be transferred to do something substantive but. i wasn't. one point i offered a solution that i thought that the command can use given the problems organizational issues that i felt needed to be addressed in happened with that either so there was definitely a bit of personal frustration in wanting to contribute not being able to. but. i thought at first it was it was myself that i just had some bad luck but talking to a lot of people and observing what was going on there seemed to be quite a few frustrated people highly qualified people who were either doing very little or doing things inappropriate based on their skills and experience so that was that was one issue i think another issue was sitting in a joint operations command every day and seeing the casualties mount.

and that brought up the in my mind the issue of the training of the afghan army which the u.s. government recently reported that after eight years and twenty seven billion dollars. they consider the training of the afghan army a failure and i was wondering you know how much american blood afghan blood coalition soldiers have been shed because the afghan army. was not ready to take over and during all that time why didn't somebody speak up because the. problems with the afghan army training program were evident in the press for a number of years so i guess is a combination of those things that drove me eventually just. to write a rather provocative article. now. i want to ask you you know on that note

you wonder why nobody. and so i do you do you yourself have an answer to that question i mean is that you know that this this bloated bureaucratic machine that the military and especially i guess you could become and we are these people concerned with with winning the war in afghanistan or with leaving and afghanistan or they were concerned about having you know a long career in the military. well i think first of all of the say why no one speaks up there is enormous pressure in the military to conform and there are penalties the asli i've experienced one if you do speak up but i don't question the intentions of any of these people i think everyone there once the when the war wants to go home wants the afghans to run their own country but. i

think this particular organization it is a good idea to do this but i think it grew too fast and unless you have experience in these kinds of organ eight organizations and the growing pains that you have and have the time and the patience to fix it. i think it's very easy to get caught up in automatic pilot and just keep doing what you have been doing and hoping that things might get better and the other issues the turnover is quite significant you have people coming in for six months even a year is a relatively short time to fix an organization in the way it should be so that is that's a complicating factor as well we do have many nations and the turnover of personnel is quite significant development as ask you very quickly last thing is you said the american people should not accept you know that the phrase that we always hear constantly is we're actually hearing that progress is being made but what can

people actually do regular americans make sure that the progress is being made means robotic operations are happening. well i think it it'll take effort on the american people to read about and study what is going on i think in particular. responsibility over congressional representatives to do that and really if they understand. what is happening in theater and what is being done. and really ask the tough questions and not accept banters like progress is being made i think everyone both the military and the american people and in the war. will benefit from that irony of course being that people like yourself that actually want to speak out and tell people what's going on and then also get you

know taken away from their jobs well colonel fallon thank you so much for joining us thank you. now before we go it's time for our tweet of the day you got us here that former u.n. ambassador and or monger john bolton said that he might actually run for president in two thousand and twelve all that got us thinking what would you tweet to followers as his campaign we thought he'd say is that like this bombs away bolton is the explosive choice in twenty two that's our tweet for tonight and we will have a number one for you on tomorrow's show that's also it for tonight's show thanks for tuning in and make sure you can come back tomorrow night when we discuss the end of the war in iraq president obama will make his second oval office address to discuss the end of the combat mission will take an in-depth look at whether or not that means of the war is really over and what kind of a country those combat troops will be leaving behind including fifty thousand

american troops that will still be there in the meantime don't forget to become a fan of the a lot of show on facebook and follow us on twitter and if you missed any of tonight's show or any other nights you can always catch it all the you tube dot com slash the on a show where we post the interviews as well as the entire show coming up next is the news with the latest headlines from the u.s. and around the world. there. was a little blood just. these two here this thing. to remember every second of this like. it'll remain in the memories a harsh. you saw. going to see.

a little. they faced it this is not a provocation looked worn. by the forces of the settlers several already assured us of a pretty good dream speech so they have no idea about the hardships to face.

one it is this is it all of them too nice and for any army to life ever using them is the most precious thing in the world. uses of self-sacrifice and heroism with those who understand it fully but you have to live a. real life stories from world war two. victory nineteen forty five don't r.t. dot com.

the u.s. meets its withdrawal deadline for combat troops in iraq but thousands of other soldiers remain what some are calling of america's rebranding itself the patient. base your bets on russian last vegas could be moving closer to a major city as far flung gambling satans fail to attract punters. and mass suicide threat villages in eastern india say they'll kill themselves don't receive government aid to ease their suffering offer to get drowned. you're watching our take live from moscow welcome to the program the u.s. .