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Michael Bloomberg's War on Guns Lowell Ponte New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is leading a war on guns, and it may be just the first salvo in his drive to become president. Many Americans may recognize Mayor Bloomberg for his company - Bloomberg L.P. As the Republican mayor of New York City, he spent an astonishing $160 million to get elected in 2001 and re-elected in 2005. Today, media entrepreneur Bloomberg is the 44th richest person in the United States and 142nd wealthiest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine, which in 2007 estimated his net worth at $5.5 billion. Fortune magazine last April calculated that his share of Bloomberg LP is worth $13 billion. Bloomberg has already "set aside" $1 billion for an independent 2008 presidential campaign, reported the Washington Times last May. Mayor Bloomberg might be a centrist in liberal New York City, say critics, but to most Americans his views are extreme, as evidenced by his no-holds-barred war against guns.
Story Continues Below "Our most urgent challenge is ending the threat of guns and the violence they do….," re-elected Mayor Bloomberg declared in his January 1, 2006, Inaugural address. "Now we have a duty…one that rises above all partisan politics, and one we will pursue relentlessly: And that is to rid our streets of guns, and punish all those who possess and traffic in these instruments of death." Bloomberg's determination to "punish all those who possess" firearms does not easily square with the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment right of citizens "to keep and bear arms." On April 25, 2006, Bloomberg hosted a gathering of 15 mayors to launch a new group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns. One year later this coalition, co-chaired by Bloomberg, had "over 210 mayors from more than 40 states." In early 2006 Bloomberg hired private investigators to carry out undercover sting operations at 45 gun stores in Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia. Firearms involved in New York City crimes had at some point been sold in these stores. In a typical Bloomberg sting, a man and woman entered a gun store. The man agreed to buy a gun, then asked the woman to sign government forms. The aim was to simulate "straw purchases," illegal acts in which one person who can pass a government background check signs government documents to purchase a firearm for someone else ineligible to buy a gun because of a criminal or mental health record. Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, has held raffles to raise legal defense money for two stores targeted by Bloomberg's sting and lawsuits. "The State of Virginia responded to Mayor Bloomberg by enacting a new law," Van Cleave told NewsMax. "So starting in July 2007, anyone who does what Bloomberg's agents did will be committing a felony. The U.S. Justice Department declined to file criminal charges against any of the firearms dealers stung by Bloomberg, but it has advised Bloomberg's office that it could face "potential legal liabilities" if such sting operations continue. "While Mayor Bloomberg engaged in secret vigilante-type actions trying to entrap clerks in gun stores," said Van Cleave, "he never informed local, state or federal law enforcement about what he would be doing." Bloomberg's private sting operations in legal jurisdictions far from New York City may, according to one report, have "compromised" at least four criminal investigations by law enforcement agencies and put an additional 14 local, state or federal criminal cases "at risk." "Mayor Bloomberg wants access to the ATF's [the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] ‘trace data' for guns used in crimes, data that by federal law is available only for legitimate on-going criminal investigations by law enforcement," the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) Alan Gottlieb told NewsMax. "This federal statute that Bloomberg and his cronies in Mayors Against Illegal Guns want to overturn," said Gottlieb, "is essential to protecting information that if leaked could tip off criminals to an undercover federal investigation, or could endanger the life of an undercover officer. "Bloomberg wants access to that information solely for the purpose of mounting harassment lawsuits against law-abiding businesses," said Gottlieb. "It's got nothing to do with fighting crime, and a lot to do with feeding his own desire for self-aggrandizement." "Mayor Bloomberg has repeatedly conspired to violate federal firearms laws," the Executive Director of Gun Owners of America (GOA) Larry Pratt told NewsMax. "He sent private investigators to other states using false identifications. If you or I did this, we'd have the book thrown at us," Pratt said, "so why isn't Mayor Bloomberg on trial or in jail for what he's done?" "I see Bloomberg as a politician," said Van Cleave. "He doesn't know how to deal with the criminal element. He finds it easier not to blame criminals or his own shortcomings for crime in his city. He'd rather blame New York City crime on a store clerk several states away in Virginia – or blame the gun." "It's no surprise to us that Mayor Bloomberg has been harshly criticized by the U.S. Justice Department for his vigilante sting operations against firearms dealers outside New York," a spokesperson for the National Rifle Association (NRA) Ashley Varner told NewsMax. "The National Rifle Association is on the side of the Fraternal Order of Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Department of Justice," said Varner. "We are against politicians who want to dig into the pockets of gun manufacturers and retailers." Thusfar, Bloomberg's sting operations, and his lawsuits threatening to hold small firearms stores liable for millions of dollars of damages purportedly caused by guns they sold, have driven two stores out of business. More than a dozen signed agreements that, in effect, put them under Bloomberg's political supervision. Bloomberg's hatred of firearms has twisted roots. "When I was 15 or so, I had a .22-caliber rifle," he told The New York Times in 2006. "Part of my hearing's gone because of it." In September 2003, as the U.S. Senate was debating legislation to immunize gunmakers, distributors and vendors against lawsuits, Bloomberg said: "It's exactly the same thing as taking away liability from [illicit] drug dealers…. We don't do that, and guns are exactly the same thing." Bloomberg hates tobacco smoke as much as gunsmoke. In 2003 he gained new legal restrictions to prohibit tobacco smoking in all New York City workplaces, including restaurants, bars and offices not open to the public where all employees are smokers. He tried to ram into law a "silent night" ordinance that would have given police the power to ticket anyone who talked too loudly. And months ago Mayor Bloomberg pushed through a law making New York City the first city to prohibit restaurants from cooking with or serving trans-fats. Mayor Bloomberg, say his critics, is a "nanny statist," a self-righteous elitist who arrogantly uses government to impose his values onto everybody else's life for what he sees as their own good. "If Mayor Bloomberg truly thinks guns are unnecessary and evil, he ought to lead by example," GOA's Pratt sardonically told NewsMax. "He should disarm his gun-toting, taxpayer-paid bodyguards, and he should announce that if elected President he will permit no firearms to be carried by the Secret Service agents who protect him."
© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
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