New Orleans Mayor Issues Coronavirus Order Allowing Ban on Sale, Transportation of Firearms

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell (D) signed a coronavirus emergency order last week allowing her to ban the sale and transportation of firearms.

She signed a follow-up proclamation on March 16, 2020, further emphasizing her emergency powers to “suspend or limit the sale, dispensing, or transportation, of alcoholic beverages.”

The declaration declaring the mayor’s power to restrict gun sales and transportation says she is “empowered, if necessary, to suspend or limit the sale of alcoholic beverages, firearms, explosives, and combustibles.”

On March 16, 2020, the Second Amendment Foundation responded to Cantrell’s claims of emergency powers over firearms by reminding her that they sued over Second Amendment infringement following Hurricane Katrina and will do so during the era of coronavirus if needed.

SAF executive vice president Alan Gottlieb said:

Following Hurricane Katrina, we sued the city when then-Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration began confiscating firearms from law-abiding citizens for no good reason. The federal court order the city to cease confiscations.

We sued New Orleans then, and we’ll do it again. The presence of a nasty disease does not suspend any part of the Bill of Rights, no matter what some municipal, state or even federal politician may think. While we certainly recognize the seriousness of this virus and its ability to spread rapidly, treating Covid-19 and taking steps to prevent it from infecting more people has nothing at all to do with the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment.

Gottlieb added, “People legally licensed to carry should not have their right to do so suddenly curtailed because some politician panicked. We didn’t allow it before, and we’re not going to allow it now.”

On March 14, 2020, Breitbart News reported that Champaign, Illinois, Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen (D) issued an emergency coronavirus order that gives her the power to halt ammunition and firearm sales in the city.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.