Bloomberg Cast as Enemy No. 1 of Gun Rights

[Guest Shep]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/04/nyregion/04guns.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5124&en=353db9c3e18d2ed2&ex=1338696000&partner=digg&exprod=digg

Bloomberg Cast as Enemy No. 1 of Gun Rights

By DIANE CARDWELL

Published: June 4, 2007

In New York, Michael R. Bloomberg is known as the billionaire media mogul who became mayor. But in many parts of the country, he is the man who would take away your guns.

An editorial writer in Harrisburg, Pa., accuses him of “ranting†about illegal firearms. A conservative publication in Florida, NewsMax, asserts: “Bloomberg’s hatred of guns has twisted roots.†And on the Web site of The Wichita Eagle, one writer wonders why a New York mayor is “telling the people of Kansas what to do.â€

In towns large and small across the country, Mr. Bloomberg, a Republican, has emerged as the face of gun control in America. Under his guidance, a coalition called Mayors Against Illegal Guns has grown in little more than a year from a skeletal group of 15 into an organization of 225 leaders of towns and cities — many of them Democrats — who are pursuing legal, political and media strategies to stem gun crime.

The mayors have met several times since the organization was formed, including in regional groups. They have lobbied Congress to lift restrictions on sharing data about the source of illegal firearms and shared strategies to fight gun violence and reduce gun trafficking.

On its own, New York City conducted sting operations intended to catch gun dealers making illegal sales. The city then filed lawsuits against those dealers, seeking to oversee their future business practices. Now it is sharing information about that approach with other members of the coalition.

Though it is difficult to measure its effectiveness, the coalition — particularly Mr. Bloomberg — has caught the eye, and fueled the ire, of gun rights groups, many of which contend that the coalition is trying to undermine a constitutionally protected right to bear arms.

In Virginia, a gun rights group has held a Bloomberg Gun Giveaway, a raffle protesting the mayor’s stings. In those operations, the city sent undercover private investigators posing as buyers to out-of-state dealers whose guns had been linked to crimes in New York in an effort to catch the dealers allowing straw purchases — sales of guns clearly intended for someone other than the buyer.

And the National Rifle Association, a lobbying superpower in Washington and many statehouses, has vilified Mr. Bloomberg on its Web site and in its publications, putting him on the cover of a widely distributed magazine.

That article, which labeled Mr. Bloomberg “a billionaire, Boston-grown evangelist for the nanny state,†said, “Beholden to nothing except his own ambitions, the mayor has established himself as a kind of national gun-control vigilante.â€

Mr. Bloomberg does not see his cause as such, but rather as a pragmatic response to crime. He declined to be interviewed for this article, but he has consistently said that he supports the right to own a gun and is simply looking to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals.

“We aren’t interested in refighting an ideological battle,†said Edward Skyler, the deputy mayor overseeing the gun effort. “The issues we have taken on are about crime and law enforcement, so that’s the way the debate needs to be framed.â€

Mr. Bloomberg’s rise as the bête noire of gun rights advocates comes at a time when many gun control groups have been pushed to the sidelines in Washington and support for sweeping gun control measures seems weak.

In the fight, there is a mutually beneficial political dynamic at work, political analysts say. The N.R.A. gets a clear enemy it can use to excite donors to rally to its cause, and Mr. Bloomberg bolsters his popularity among New Yorkers, who have tended to favor gun control, and strengthens his image as a crusader for the nation’s cities.

Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at Third Way, a center-left policy group in Washington, said that if Mr. Bloomberg makes a third-party presidential run in 2008, as some people are asking him to do, “It probably doesn’t hurt him,†adding, “It certainly helps him at home.â€

The pushback has come not just from gun rights groups. The Justice Department has warned the Bloomberg administration about the legality of its sting operations. Virginia has already outlawed them, while Georgia is considering similar legislation. And at least four mayors have dropped out of the coalition, citing discomfort with the group’s tactics and concerns about potential infringement on gun rights.

In Washington, many Democrats still believe the passage of a ban on assault weapons in 1994 was responsible for Republican victories in the Congressional elections later that year and the presidential election of 2000. In recent elections, an increasing number of Democrats have run as opponents of gun control, including some centrist Democrats whose election last year helped their party retake control of Congress.

In this environment, gun control advocates say, there is a leadership vacuum the mayors seem intent on filling. “Washington has abandoned the gun issue, which makes it extremely difficult for localities to fight gun violence, because it’s an interstate problem,†said Richard Aborn, the president of New York’s Citizens Crime Commission, who has consulted on the Bloomberg gun efforts.

New York mayors have traditionally supported gun control measures, even on a national stage. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican, allied himself with a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, to support the 1994 assault weapons ban. But Mr. Bloomberg’s approach is much more elaborate and sustained than what his predecessors have attempted.

The most prominent of the coalition’s goals is to undo the Tiahrt Amendment, a provision that has been attached to Congressional spending bills every year since 2003 that restricts the ability of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to release detailed information about the source of illegal guns.

The amendment, named for Representative Todd Tiahrt, the Republican from Kansas who introduced it, keeps federal officials from releasing trace data, which shows the path from manufacturer to retail purchase of a gun recovered in a crime, to authorities other than those investigating that crime.

Some law enforcement officials who support the measure have argued that broader release of the information could jeopardize their investigations. And advocates of the amendment say that cities seeking the data beyond their borders are simply interested in pursuing lawsuits against gun manufacturers.

But other law enforcement officials say that the restrictions hinder their ability to see how guns move through their communities.

“We’d like to know information about where guns are coming from, say, in Newark or in Atlantic City or someplace like that,†said the New York City police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, who oversaw the A.T.F. as an undersecretary in the Clinton Treasury Department. “We might be able to watch some people.â€

A.T.F. officials in New York counter that there is no prohibition on cities sharing trace data with one another. But Mr. Kelly said that it is not as easy as it might seem. “Traditionally, we haven’t had those relationships with other cities,†he said.

The mayors’ gun coalition lobbied successfully to keep the Tiahrt Amendment from becoming law, rather than an annual attachment, last year and has been pressuring Congress this year to kill the provision. Mr. Bloomberg’s criminal justice coordinator, John Feinblatt, is in Washington every week, lobbying representatives and talking strategy with allies. The mayors also opened a Web site, www.protectpolice.org and created a 30-second television advertisement that has been broadcast in Washington and in the districts of members of Congress involved in the appropriations process.

How the fight in Washington will play out remains to be seen. But there are signs that at the local level, the focus on guns is having some effect.

Of the 27 gun dealers the Bloomberg administration sued, 12 have settled, agreeing to submit to monitoring of their sales practices by a court-appointed master.

At the Police Department, Mr. Kelly has enhanced efforts to take guns off the streets, creating a gun suppression unit that includes officials from the A.T.F. and adding roughly 50 investigators who gather information from people arrested with guns about where they got them. He has also reinvigorated a program called Gunstoppers that pays for information about gun possession that leads to an arrest.

As a result, Mr. Kelly said, gun arrests are up 7 percent this year, and up about 15 percent over the last two years. And homicides by gun are down 22 percent and shootings are down 16 percent this year.

In addition, the city successfully lobbied the state last year to increase penalties for gun possession, and has established a monitoring unit to which people sentenced for gun offenses will have to report after serving their sentences.

But even though the city has been successful in reducing crime, there is still a stubborn knot of violence related to guns, 90 percent of which come from out of state and which account for 60 percent of homicides in the city, Mr. Kelly said.

It is a dynamic at work in other cities. One benefit of participating in the coalition is sharing strategies, several mayors said.

“As a new mayor, I’ve been able to talk to other mayors who have had similar experiences with violent crime,†said Kathy Taylor of Tulsa, Okla., a longtime N.R.A. member who said she does not see a contradiction between her support of gun rights and her work on the gun coalition. She views the coalition as a law enforcement effort to protect her constituents, not as an attempt to diminish the legal right to own a gun.

Ms. Taylor, a Democrat, said she had picked up methods for recognizing and controlling gang activity.

Another new mayor, Byron Brown of Buffalo, said techniques he learned from the coalition are helping Buffalo reduce its homicide rate, which is down 21 percent in 2007. Those include buying back guns and creating a program called Operation Strike Force, which sends highly mobile units into high crime areas. Mr. Brown, a Democrat, said he was also putting in place a camera system after consulting with the mayors of Baltimore and Chicago about their use of camera surveillance.

Still, while some gun rights advocates argue that if more ordinary citizens were armed, they would be safer from violent criminals, gun control advocates say the ultimate solutions lie with the federal government.

Kristen Rand, the legislative director of the Violence Policy Center in Washington, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing gun violence, summed up the mayors’ message this way: “We are doing all that we can, but we can’t do it all ourselves.â€

[bteague2]

gun control advocates say the ultimate solutions lie with the federal government.

wow, is it revolution time already?

[towerclimber37]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/04/nyregion/04guns.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5124&en=353db9c3e18d2ed2&ex=1338696000&partner=digg&exprod=digg

Bloomberg Cast as Enemy No. 1 of Gun Rights

By DIANE CARDWELL

Published: June 4, 2007

“We’d like to know information about where guns are coming from, say, in Newark or in Atlantic City or someplace like that,” said the New York City police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, who oversaw the A.T.F. as an undersecretary in the Clinton Treasury Department. “We might be able to watch some people.”

A.T.F. officials in New York counter that there is no prohibition on cities sharing trace data with one another. But Mr. Kelly said that it is not as easy as it might seem. “Traditionally, we haven’t had those relationships with other cities,” he said.

Kelly is the man responsible for the Waco massacre as well as the Ruby Ridge incident. Now he's after firearms in the same manner.

This is a man that truly deserves to be imprisoned, in my opinion.

But even though the city has been successful in reducing crime, there is still a stubborn knot of violence related to guns, 90 percent of which come from out of state and which account for 60 percent of homicides in the city, Mr. Kelly said.”

Why do I doubt the veracity of this statement? is it because Kelly is known to support and defend liars and is an accomplished liar himself.

So, now the jackbooted thugs will ensure that NO private citizen is allowed to own Firearms. Think about it. It won't matter if you're old and infirm.

You will NO LONGER have the ability to defend yourself against the police who are in alot of other states, corrupt. Keep in mind the events that happened in chicago on 2 separate occasions ( the bartender that was beaten by the off duty police officer) and the 2 people that were assaulted by a sergeant and his cronies when they were off duty (they even waved off the on duty responders when 911 was called).

also keep in mind the young soldier that was traveling from las vegas and was beaten by the fat cop in the airport. He didn't defend himself because there was another cop there with a taser pistol to ensure that if he did, he'd be beaten without the ability to block the blows.

Craven actions like this are the reason I advocate the 2nd amendment and oppose HERR BLOOMBERG

[Guest Ghostrider]

wow, is it revolution time already?

I'm thinking it's pretty darn close...

And it's a scary thought...

[Guest jackdog]

Tower, Kelly should not be imprisoned as you suggest, but a bullet to the bean would be nice.