"Legal Victory for New Orleans Gun Owners?

(CNSNews.com) - A federal judge on Wednesday rejected an attempt to dismiss a Second Amendment lawsuit against the City of New Orleans.

The National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation sued New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent Warren Riley last year to stop the confiscation of firearms from private citizens in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Judge Carl Barbier of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana on Wednesday denied the city's motion to dismiss the lawsuit -- and ordered the city to submit a response.

"We're encouraged by this latest ruling," said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. "For almost a year, we've been fighting the city's delay tactics, which included outright lying by city officials that any firearms had been seized.

"Only when we threatened Mayor Nagin and Superintendent Riley with a motion for contempt did the city miraculously discover that they actually did have more than 1,000 firearms that had been taken from their owners."

The Second Amendment Foundation said the lawsuit is intended to protect the rights of New Orleans gun owners - and also to "make sure that this serves as a warning to public officials across the country to forget about seizing firearms from their law-abiding owners in the event of a natural or man-made disaster." . . . .