Bloomberg's Gun Grabber's Meet

Why isn't this guy in jail yet? Honestly, why hasn't the BATFE at least told the public why it hasn't taken any action. You'd think there would have been enough evidence of the activity to have any of the rest of the citizenry arrested for like actions in the Straw Purchases that he pulled. Why the glacial rate of activity on this?

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 — Mayors from some of the nation’s largest cities gathered on Tuesday to urge Congress to crack down on the trade of illegal firearms. But the mayors’ efforts, led by Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and Thomas M. Menino of Boston, generated a small protest by advocates for gun owners and dealers.

At a daylong conference here, the coalition, known as Mayors Against Illegal Guns, vowed to press for federal legislation to give cities greater access to trace data, which law enforcement authorities can use to determine the origin of guns involved in crimes. A trace tracks the weapon’s sales history, from manufacturer to distributor to retailer to buyer.

An appropriations provision passed each year since 2003 has banned the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from releasing gun-trace data, except to police officials and prosecutors investigating or prosecuting a crime. The provision prevents the data from being used in civil lawsuits against gun dealers or manufacturers.

With Congress now under the control of Democrats, who are generally more favorable to gun control, the provision may be rescinded this year. To advance that goal, along with other measures to stem the flow of illegal guns, the mayors announced the creation of a bipartisan task force of four House members concerned about illegal guns.

Of course they had to beat the gun-trace database issue. Note that there isn't any mention of how such a system could, and likely would be abused by those with an anti-gun agenda. Seeing that civil lawsuits are the only method that appears to be interesting to these Mayors for actually stopping gun crime, since god knows that actually enforcing the law isn't good enough. The obvious thing to do is to bring civil litigation against anybody who at any time may have legally owned the gun that was used in a crime.

And now they have Congress jumping on board with more committees. I'm certain that will come up with another champion of anti-gun legislation like the '94 ban on guns that look like assault weapons.

The two Democrats on the task force are Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, the new chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee. The Republicans are Representatives Peter T. King of New York and Mark Steven Kirk of Illinois.

There were signs of opposition to the mayors’ efforts. The New York Sun reported last week that Jared D. Fuhriman of Idaho Falls, Idaho, became the first mayor to withdraw from the coalition, saying he thought its proposals were going too far.

Bi-partisan indeed. No doubt there will never be any voice for those who understand the meaning of the 2nd Amendment.

Here's the discussion on the straw purchases. It's rather lame.

As the conference proceeded at the Cannon House Office Building, four gun-rights groups held a news conference at the Capital Hilton downtown to denounce Mr. Bloomberg, whom they called “the Manhattan gun grabber.”

They questioned the propriety and legality of the Bloomberg administration’s use of private investigators to conduct undercover sting operations. The operations have documented so-called straw purchases, in which proxies sign the paperwork on behalf of buyers who would not be eligible to buy a gun or pass required background checks. Such operations have been the basis for civil lawsuits by the city against dealers.

“This is the kind of slapdash, Keystone Kop behavior that the mayor has been engaging in, and indeed by sending non-law-enforcement people to do these attempted sting operations, he is violating the law,” said Larry Pratt, executive director of the Gun Owners of America.

Note that there isn't any discussion of the BATFE investigation. Convenient omission?

At the conference, Mr. Bloomberg maintained that the coalition respected the Second Amendment and was not trying to curb gun rights. “That’s ideological nonsense, and we’ve just got to move past it,” he said of the arguments raised by critics. “Respecting the rights of gun owners while cracking down on illegal guns are completely compatible goals.”

Right. Anyone else believe that statement? You respect the 2nd Amendment only to your interpretation and that is clearly that it's a collective right not an individual right. This is evident through the gun laws that these mayors have in their cities. Just because they state that they are solely looking to control illegal guns doesn't make up any ground on the fact that these are among the worst gun grabbers in the country. But they respect your rights. Sure.

As to the compatibility of his goals, I'm thinking his actions have proven that he really doesn't believe what he is stating. New York has some of the most restrictive gun prohibitions in the country and it takes a near act of god to get a carry permit for self-defense. Well, unless your Chuck Schumer.

Then for some reason they pop out a quote from that pseudo gun rights group, the American Hunters and Shooters Association.

Ray Schoenke, the president of the American Hunters and Shooters Association, a small gun-rights group that describes itself as an alternative to the National Rifle Association, addressed the mayors and said that he thought many of their ideas were reasonable.

“It is time to begin rebuilding respect for our hunting and shooting heritage, which for the last 30 years has been tarnished by gun-rights extremists,” Mr. Schoenke said.

I'm wondering if they were with the GOA and the other gun rights groups or was their quote stitched in after the fact to make it appear they were a gun rights group. You can recall that they are the gun rights group that doesn't appear to have any support for the right of self-defense. Recall this post where they use the logic that a gun in the house is more often used against the owner?

There are certain factors that weigh heavily against keeping a gun in the home for self-protection. One of the most widely quoted statements about guns is that a firearm kept in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than an intruder. This comes from the Journal of Medicine in 1986, following a six-year review of gunshot deaths in Seattle, Washington, conducted by Dr. Arthur Kellermann and others. The validity of this study in determining the value and risk of firearms for home protection has been questioned. The Kellermann study focused only on defensive gun uses where the criminal intruder was shot and killed. Instances in which intruders or assailants were wounded or frightened away were not included.

The motives of this group are so exceptionally suspect that most gun bloggers can only pay them a sarcastic remark with regards to their activities.

With the recent Democratic wave, I'm sure that there will be plenty of legislation to help out these mayors. The question is, is there enough of us out there to stop them?