Armed Confederate sympathizers in New Orleans caught with weapons within 1,000 feet of a school may face fines and/or jail time, the Times-Picayune reports.
According to the Times-Picayune:
Photos and video from multiple news media and social media have shown some people carrying guns at the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Mid-City and at the statue of Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard at City Park, which may be inside the Cabrini High gun-free zone.
Facebook user Arlene Barnum captured a conversation between slavery romanticizers and law enforcement that took place early Friday afternoon near the Jefferson Davis monument.
Please note that with the history of slave patrols, the Ku Klux Klan infiltrating police departments, and cops with trigger-happy fingers gunning down black children with impunity, slavery romanticizers and law enforcement should not be considered opposing forces by default.
The Dixie deplorables and Bayou bigots were parading around Grace United Methodist Church on Canal Street, another gun-free zone because it “has a nursery school attached to it,” according to one New Orleans police officer.
In addition to being near the nursery, the Klan of protesters—which seemingly includes a token man of color—were also within 1,000 feet of Morris Jeff Community School, a charter school named after noted civil rights activist and school-equity advocate Morris Jeff.
People in violation of Louisiana’s gun-free-zone laws may be fined up to $3,000 and/or imprisoned for 18 months to five-and-a-half years.
As previously reported by The Root, the Liberty Monument—a 1891 obelisk honoring the Crescent City White League, an organization started in 1874 to turn Republicans out of office and intimidate freedmen from voting and political organizing—was the first to be removed, on April 24.
Whenever this subject arises, I return to my conversation with Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) from a few years ago, during which we discussed the neo-Confederacy and its twisted allegiance to a dead flag.
“You know, the neo-Confederacy, where they want to remember the South in a fond way, flying the rebel flag everywhere; these people took up arms against the United States, and that’s called being a traitor,” Ellison said.
“Jefferson Davis was a traitor,” he continued. “These people were traitors against the United States, and the fact that they could ever hold any honor, anywhere, is an outrage. What did they fight for? Did they fight for a noble cause? No, they fought to keep other human beings in bondage. They are totally disreputable, contemptible, and hold no value in the United States of America.”
If this video and the reports that keep trickling in from New Orleans are any indication, it looks like more than a few traitors may be paying fines.
Unless, of course, they’re given a pass, as white supremacists typically are.
Read more at the Times-Picayune.