Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a known gun control advocate, and has built a national platform to stem the flow of illegal guns into cities and towns. The group he co-founded in 2006, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has grown from 15 to 526 mayors. Its success has raised the ire of gun rights groups, most notably the National Rifle Association.
The showdown between the NRA and Mayors Against Illegal Guns is playing out across the country: in blogs, on the editorial pages of newspapers, and at countless gun clubs.
Now there's a number I hadn't seen before. I've been reading 450 and dropping. Now after some losses the count is 526.
Mayors who decide to leave the MAIG generally do so as a result of pressure from the NRA. When too many of their voters express the NRA opinion, some mayors decide to get out. It's politics. Some don't give in to those threats and bullying tactics.
Mayor Barnett is referring to the NRA claim that Bloomberg plans to take more and more rights away until gun rights all but disappear in America. It's a fear tactic that Barnett says is untrue. But I can attest to the fact that it is extremely diffuse on the internet. The pro-gun crowd is nothing if not united all singing the same tune, or is that barking in unison like so many Pavlov's dogs.Bill Barnett is the mayor of Naples, Fla. - and a gun owner - and says he received nearly a hundred emails and angry phone calls from people who'd gotten the NRA mailer. He says the mailer distorts the coalition's goals: "It amazed me that someone would read the postcard and it was almost like Pavlov's dogs, that they would say, if they said this is the truth, then this must be the truth."
And Barnett says he's staying in the mayors coalition.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
I'm sure some of the less intelligent mayors like Barnett drink the Bloomberg kool-aid. I mean, it is all about illegal guns only, right? Yet Bloomberg and his group have shown their true colors--they are anti anything gun related at all and have campaigned against legal gun ownership.
ReplyDeleteBloomberg is one of the biggest hypocrites in the anti-freedom crowd. He wants everyone to be totally defenseless while he and his family have armed security 24/7.
Many of the MAIG proposals have little or nothing to do with criminals or "illegal guns", unless the goal is to make most guns illegal. Some of the questionable positions from their website:
ReplyDeleteOppose nationwide concealed carry.
Oppose the Tihart amendment that allows law enforcement to use trace data, but limits disclosure outside law enforcement.
Allow the government to declare anyone a terrorist and remove their gun rights, without all that pesky due process.
Ballistic Identification and Microstamping: Technology that doesn't work should be mandatory anyway.
Ban guns in public areas, even with a carry license.
Can you explain how these proposals are related to illegal guns?
Well, you know what the thing is, the illegal guns were once legal guns. The flow from the one group to the other is the thing. Some are stolen, yes, but not most. Most are transferred from a legal owner to a criminal. The system we have in place now makes that too easy and too easy for the legal owner to feign innocence and to be fair in some cases to truly be innocent.
ReplyDeleteWell, you know what the thing is, the illegal guns were once legal guns. The flow from the one group to the other is the thing. Some are stolen, yes, but not most. Most are transferred from a legal owner to a criminal.
ReplyDeleteSo how would nationwide concealed carry license reciprocity make it easier for criminals to get guns?
How does eliminating due process for people with the same name as a suspected terrorist make it easier for criminals to get guns?
How does requiring patented, unreliable and trivially bypassed technology like microstamping make it easier for criminals to get guns?
How does preventing properly licensed people from carrying on public property make it easier for criminals to get guns?
Yes, the latest numbers I've seen are above 500 mayors.
ReplyDeleteWhich just has to get Helmke's panties in a twist since that's more than an order of magnitude larger than the Brady Bunch. And with Bloonberg's billions, they don't even need to attempt a grass roots approach.
But that in itself spells the downfall of MAIG.
The NRA has been grass roots since it's inception in 1871. We'll vote those mayors out of office and Bloomberg himself had to bribe the city council to get his current third term. He won't be a mayor in a few years and the org should collapse.
Like it or not, the NRA is the largest and the oldest civil rights org the world has ever seen, and we also have billions of dollars at our disposal.
There's a reason we have influence in Washington.
MikeB said: "Most are transferred from a legal owner to a criminal."
ReplyDeleteAnd you know this how?
What you advocate is prior restraint on a right. Sounds like tyranny.
VOR asked, "And you know this how?"
ReplyDeleteActually I don't know anything. How would you explain the guns in criminal hands? Are they mainly stolen, in which case it's the improper storage and securing on the part of legal gun owners that plays a part.
Or is there some other way so many guns get into criminal hands? Please tell us.
kaveman, You think the grassroots aspect of an organization is really important, do you?
ReplyDeleteI enjoy the suggestion that the Bradys are jealous of the MAIG.
Are they mainly stolen, in which case it's the improper storage and securing on the part of legal gun owners that plays a part.
ReplyDeleteBullshit. I am not responsible for the criminal theft of my property.
Mike W., said, "Bullshit. I am not responsible for the criminal theft of my property."
ReplyDeleteThe fact is you could be held responsible if you failed to secure your weapons properly, if not legally certainly morally.
Any proof to that statement?
ReplyDeleteDelaware doesn't have any laws punishing me for the theft of my weapons (thankfully)
So the fact is you're wrong as usual.