Pity New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley.  When it comes to firearms, Chief Riley (along with his boss, Mayor Ray Nagin) just doesn’t get it. 

As you’ll recall, Nagin and Riley were major players in the travesty that occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  At that time, the dynamic duo’s idea of maintaining order and public “safety” was to instruct police and other law enforcement officers to confiscate lawfully- owned firearms from the city’s citizens, stripping them of their means of self-defense at precisely their time of greatest peril. 

Last month, we reported on a widely circulated picture of the beleaguered Nagin looking gleeful and appearing to point an AR-15-type rifle directly at Chief Riley while Riley held a similar firearm.  We all know that the number one rule of gun safety is to always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction, and the two anti-gun officials paid a public relations price for their safety indiscretion. 

Well, this week Riley is back in the news; this time for suggesting in an interview on local radio station WWL, that, “An assault weapons ban in New Orleans would make crime fighting easier…”

Before espousing the need for yet another law that has been proven ineffective, Riley should consider that the City of New Orleans has already lost two highly questionable firearm cases in court, and there are already more than enough laws on the books to prosecute criminals who illegally possess firearms.  He should also consider the fact that any proposal such as that discussed in the interview would violate his state’s firearms preemption law.