New
York Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks to reporters after his meeting with
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington February
27, 2013.
Rich people do crazy things with their money, but no one’s ever accused billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg of being the kind to throw money away on a lost cause. So some observers are confused by his $12 million ad buy during Congress’ Easter recess. Bloomberg’s ads push for the expansion of legally required background checks to include private sales, a move that close to 90 percent of Americans support, including 74 percent of NRA members, according to Republican pollster Frank Luntz.
Bloomberg’s not the only one pushing the issue this week. Backed by the mothers of victims of gun violence, an impassioned President Obama held an event at the White House Thursday morning touting his multifaceted gun control package and singling out the background check issue in particular. “Ninety percent of Americans–90 percent–support background checks,” Obama said, “How often do 90 percent of Americans agree on anything?” Groups allied with Bloomberg, like Gabby Giffords’ Americans for Responsible Solutions, are also launching a background check blitz.
That should be a sobering thought for all the gun-rights fanatics who've been prematurely celebrating the demise of Obama's gun control agenda. Bloomberg is not the kind of guy to throw good money after bad.
What do you think? Please leave a comment.
I think there's a fairly strong chance the private sales ban atrocity will pass in some form, with just enough RINO traitors to push it through.
ReplyDeleteSo . . . we'll just have to defy it, on a massive scale.
Eventually, you anti-rights folks will be back to singing your theme song:
We shall undercome.
You'll be obligated to disobey, I understand. And calling the law an atrocity justifies it.
DeleteBut the truth is, most gun owners will obey and fewer criminals will get guns as a result.
But the truth is, most gun owners will obey and fewer criminals will get guns as a result.
DeleteAh, sure--tell that to Mexico ;-).
Most won't obey- but not necessarily because of civil disobedience. They won't know that they'd be a felon for going out of town for more than two weeks, or that they are forbidden from letting their friend plink cans in their woods, because the irresponsible media has made the law seem like it was just about gun sales.
DeleteI believe the law would have exceptions for immediate family and temporary sharing of guns.
DeleteMike, For WEEKS we have been telling your about these problems in the law. We have been reading the text. First, we had Schumer's bill; now we have Reid's bill that combines Schumer's bill and Gillibrand's anti-Trafficking one. The language is the same.
DeleteThe Exceptions you prognosticate are NOT in the bill. Look at the text, and stop talking out your ass.
Mikeb, if you'd do some research, your beliefs would carry weight. As it stands, even you apparently don't know what is in Schumer's bill. Or you're being dishonest. Which is it?
DeleteIt has narrow exemptions, yes. The examples I gave fall out of the band of exemptions. You can leave town for 7 days, but the 8th day is a felony. You can show someone your gun inside your house or on your porch, but if they take it into the woods to shoot it you've commited a federal felony. No, not everything is a felony, but these things happen so often to encompass almost every gun owner. It is so onerous and absurd it won't even cross their mind that they are committing a crime.
DeleteYou're exaggerating. Here's an article which is extremely hostile towards Schumer.
Deletehttp://reason.com/blog/2013/03/14/schumers-background-check-bill-criminali
"Exempted are gifts within a family, such as by grandparents to grandchildren, and other very specifically defined circumstances in which somebody else is allowed to touch your firearm. Pretty much anything else flirts with prison time."
I'm not following. Why did you say I'm exaggerating and then link to a quote that agrees with me?
DeleteMikeb, when you quote an article, why don't you read the whole thing? My partner and I are not married i the eyes of the law, so if one of us goes on a trip for too long, we're both guilty of a crime under this bill. I have a friend who lets a group of us use her land for practice. If I share a gun with one of my fellow shooters, we will have both committed a crime under this bill. Do you get it?
DeleteThat quote from Reason.com does exactly zero to contradict what TS, Greg, and others have been saying--and the second sentence actually supports it.
DeleteHow old are you, Mikeb? No one would ever have thought of you as the intellectual sort, but I don't remember you having been this relentlessly, incurably, and seemingly proudly idiotic in the past.
It's not pretty when an already not-too-bright guy starts showing symptoms of severe dementia.
Bad news for you, Mikeb. Even the ACLU agrees with Greg, TS, me, etc.:
DeleteThe ACLU’s second “significant concern” with Reid’s legislation is that it too broadly defines the term “transfer,” creating complicated criminal law that law-abiding Americans may unwittingly break.
“[I]t’s certainly a civil liberties concern,” Calabrese told TheDC. “You worry about, in essence, a criminal justice trap where a lawful gun owner who wants to obey the law inadvertently runs afoul of the criminal law.”
“They don’t intend to transfer a gun or they don’t think that’s what they’re doing, but under the law they can be defined as making a transfer. We think it’s important that anything that is tied to a criminal sanction be easy to understand and avoid allowing too much prosecutorial discretion.”
“For example, different gun ranges are treated differently,” Calabrese said. “You’re firing a firearm in one geographic location, you’re OK, but in another, you’re not. And those kind things, it’s going to be hard for your average consumer to really internalize and figure out the difference.”
“Criminal sanctions shouldn’t hinge on those kinds of differences,” he said.
Earlier in the article, the focus was on ACLU's concern that this legislation could lead to a national gun registry, which of course every decent human knows must not be allowed to happen.
Great find Kurt!
DeleteHey Mike! Do you see that! The ACLU has sided more with you and Laci on the interpretation of the Second Amendment itself, yet even THEY can see that we're right about this law being a mess!
How does that taste? Like crow?
Or are you going to continue raving against sense and calling us liars? Or just ignore this thread now that it's far enough down in the archives...
Thanks, Anon. I think Mikeb's only choice at this point is to accuse the ACLU of being "pro-gun liars."
DeleteMan--this gets more fun all the time!
OK, I give, I say uncle, so to speak. The problems with the law as written are serious and I agree they do present some unfair and onerous situations. I would also say that if it were a choice between this law with all it's problems that you guys have pointed out and no law at all, we'd have to go with this one and you poor abused gun owners would just have to live with it.
DeleteThat's how urgent closing the private sale loophole is.
So, in other words, you see that this is an unjust law, but at least it just affects us, and you can dismiss us by derision, calling us "poor abused gun owners," and so you are going to continue supporting this law, in spite the injustice of it, because it gives you what you want.
DeleteThis law would unjustly convict most or all gun owners of felonies if properly enforced, ruining lives and removing voting and gun rights from people. But that's ok with you, because it will stop me from selling a gun to a non-criminal friend without paying for a background check.
Go to Hell; you and the horse you rode in on.
OK, I give, I say uncle, so to speak. The problems with the law as written are serious and I agree they do present some unfair and onerous situations.
DeleteLet me make sure I have this straight. Having the easily verified facts of the legislation's intolerable burdens on decent people explained to you over and over and over again was not enough for you to even entertain the notion that it might be overreach on the forcible citizen disarmament fanatics' part, but when the ACLU tells you the same thing, you say, "OK--I guess you're right." Does that about sum it up? Do you ever allow yourself any independent thinking, without a (generally) left-wing organization giving you permission to admit that the nanny-state is wrong?
And then this shit:
I would also say that if it were a choice between this law with all it's [sic] problems that you guys have pointed out and no law at all, we'd have to go with this one and you poor abused gun owners would just have to live with it.
So knowing the legislation is unjust, oppressive, and unconstitutional (thus in violation of the supreme law of the land), you say, "Deal with it--violating your rights suits my purposes, so to hell with those rights."
No, asshole--we're not going to "live with it," and if you and your ideological allies can't live without it, well--that's alright with me. It still ain't happening.
Don't fucking call me an asshole if you want your comments to stand.
DeleteIt wasn't really the ACLU thing that caused me to admit you guys might have a point. Their thing is mainly about the privacy. You guys have been pointing out other problems, which I admit are valid.
WOW! Deleting my comments for saying that it's tyrannical to admit a law is unjust, but that you still want it anyway!
DeleteThanks for proving my point, and for answering my question regarding what you meant by "If you want your comments to stand."
I didn't call you an asshole, but I guess you jut HAVE to have the last word here so that anyone trolling through the archives will see your screeching and assume we all gave up.
I think you shouldn't believe your own propaganda. When tyrants have to throw wealth around like this, the battle is nearly over. The war, of course, never ends.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but that's like a couple hundred bucks to an average person. Who hasn't blow a few hundred dollars on something stupid before?
ReplyDeleteThat 90% number (if it is even accurate) would drop significantly if people learned about the details of the bill in the Senate. Pass that atrocity, and it will not be followed. It will probably be violated on general principle.
ReplyDeleteThere will be some who disregard the law, just like there are some who do that now. They're called hidden criminals.
DeleteMikeb, a just law forbids something wrong. One gay man leaving a gun in the care of a partner while he goes on a trip isn't wrong. Letting someone at the range try out a firearm isn't wrong. Even selling a gun to someone isn't wrong.
DeleteYou have such a distorted view of firearms that you can't see reality, but clear-headed senators will block this bill and all others. Someday, Dianne Frankenstein will retire or die. Then we can get more good laws passed. Lautenberg is already planning to leave. One by one, the haters of gun rights are departing, to be replaced by people like Rand Paul. The war between collectivism and individual liberties has to be fought in each generation. We will never surrender.
Yep. They'll be so hidden they won't even know they're criminals.
DeleteYou're right Greg. A just law prohibits something wrong. It's wrong to sell a gun to someone without ensuring that he is qualified. Why is that so difficult for you?
DeleteEvery good citizen is qualified to own a gun, and the presumption is on the side of innocence.
DeleteWhat's difficult here is that you don't trust citizens, while I do.