Police return confiscated guns to owners

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Under pressure from the National Rifle Association, police this week began returning guns confiscated after Hurricane Katrina.
The police department is making the guns available three days a week. At the close of the second day Wednesday, police said only 17 of about 700 weapons had been returned. Police and soldiers removed guns from houses after the storm flooded the city, and they confiscated guns from some evacuees.
The NRA and other groups sued the city, saying it took away people's means of protection amid the lawlessness that gripped New Orleans.
"Natural disasters may destroy great cities, but they do not destroy civil rights," said Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, which joined the NRA in the lawsuit.
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