As Americans pull together to combat the spread of the COVID-19 strain of the coronavirus, it seems inconceivable that elected officials would play politics during a national crisis. But that’s exactly what liberal extremist Democrats are doing as at least two big-city mayors target guns.
In Illinois, Champaign Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen declared a wide-sweeping state of emergency despite the fact the city has a population of only about 87,500 and has yet to record a single case of COVID-19. That’s didn’t stop the liberal zealot from getting ready to strip citizens of the Second Amendment rights.
“So many of those powers, I have had from the beginning. All we have done is enumerate them, and now the public is aware of them. So, I am the liquor commissioner. I can shut down bars yesterday, I could have shut them down two years ago,” Feinen reportedly said. “Nothing has changed with respect to that, it is just that we have laid it out, so people are aware of that. In respect to the other items that are listed in the attachment, they have been listed in the city code for 15 years.”
The city announced that Mayor Feinen has, in fact, issued an executive order allowing her to ban booze and guns. However, Democrats have been hesitant to move forward with the firearms ban and appear to be weighing voter backlash. This is an election year, and gun owners vote.
While much of Louisiana enjoys strong conservative values, liberals have seized control of several cities. In New Orleans, Democrat Mayor LaToya Cantrell went right for the guns as COVID-19 impacted the Big Easy. Mayor Cantrell — widely considered an extremist — promptly signed a declaration giving her authoritarian powers during the crisis. So bent on upending gun rights, she went as far as to re-issue an order that emphasizes the ban and transportation of firearms.
What’s truly radical about the New Orleans gun ban is that Second Amendment advocates got embroiled with anti-gun Democrats following the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Already considered a high crime city, New Orleans saw rampant assaults and thefts when food and water supplies went scarce. Citizens relied on legally owned firearms to defend themselves from gangs and thuggery.
After then-mayor Ray Nagin banned gun sales, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) sued the city so that law-abiding citizens would not be vulnerable in another crisis.
“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,” SAF executive vice president Alan Gottlieb said. “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.”
It’s disgraceful that Democrats are taking advantage of their anti-Constitution agenda during the national crisis. The American people deserve leadership that puts a laser focus on containment, cures, and the restoration of public health safety. Clearly, that is not what voters got from these left-wing ideologues.
