Michael Bloomberg's gun-control guy dreams of building a rival to the N.R.A., some day
Feinblatt, behind Ray Kelly and Bloomberg. Spencer T Tucker, via nyc.gov
1:27 pm Apr. 10, 201215
John Feinblatt, a 60-year-old West Village father of two, is that exceedingly rare gun-control advocate who feels that his side can play offense.
This may have something to do with the nature of his employment: He is Michael Bloomberg's chief policy adviser and he oversees Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a coalition that, enabled by the mayor's money, continues to press a fight that the Democratic Party has long since abandoned.
"They say that people like Obama are going to take your guns away," said Feinblatt, sitting in a cramped conference room on the first floor of City Hall in a dark suit, blue-striped shirt and complementary tie, referring to the mighty National Rifle Association.
"I mean, Obama has done nothing virtually to tamper or restrict gun rights. You could argue he's gone the other way. Guns in national parks. Guns on Amtrak. And yet the N.R.A. is still raising dollars off the concept that Obama is gonna take your guns away."
Bloomberg and his coalition are hardly a counterweight to the national gun lobby, whose political strength is very well established. But it's not for lack of determination.
With grim regularity, every time there is a particularly shocking act of gun violence in the news, there is the mayor, talking about lax interstate gun regulations and the lack of will in Washington to do anything about it.
After the Trayvon Martin shooting, Bloomberg said, "The gun lobby is writing our nation's gun laws."
After the shooting of four police officers in Sheepshead Bay this weekend, the mayor said police officers would continue to get shot with illegal guns "until those in Washington stop cowering before the gun lobby."
Bloomberg has become, as UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, the author of "Gunfight," put it, "enemy number one" for the gun lobby, and "the face of the gun-control movement."
Feinblatt, a solidly built man with a ruddy face whose wedding to the city's Consumer Affairs commissioner Jonathan Mintz was officiated by Bloomberg at Gracie Mansion, believes the mayor's advocacy, and the attendant pressure he and the coalition (with its $4 million budget) have been able to put on some officials, has been having an effect.
"We have to, as we have on certain issues, show that there's a cost to your vote," says Feinblatt.
On March 20, Senator John Thune of South Dakota introduced the "Respecting States' Rights and Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act," which would require states that allow some form of concealed gun permits to recognize the concealed-carry gun permits of other states, even when those states have significantly weaker gun-access laws. The legislation offers marginally more expansive concealed-carry rights than an otherwise quite similar bill introduced the week before by two Democratic senators, Mark Begich of Alaska and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a version of which has already passed the House.
Feinblatt says that, in good part thanks to his organization's lobbying efforts, neither bill will pass the Senate, and that, therefore, both are dead. (Last time Thune introduced such a measure, in 2010, it got 58 votes in the Senate, two short of the number needed to overcome a filibuster.)
According to Feinblatt, “moderate senators” have flipped on the issue since then, though he declined to say which ones.
“I think we have turned the tide on this issue in the Senate," he said.
Even if that's true, it would amount to a small victory in a larger war that the N.R.A. is indisputably winning and will likely continue to win for the foreseeable future.
"Gun-control groups, whether it’s the mayors group or Brady, those folks are playing defense, and they’re not playing very good defense right now," said Harry Wilson, a professor of political science at Virginia's Roanoke College, who has written extensively on gun control. "At this point in time, I would say the N.R.A. and gun-rights groups are winning. But that’s always open to change."
The N.R.A. has a lot going for it, including a tried-and-true communications and lobbying operation, and a well-organized, highly motivated membership that, in contrast to many Americans who support gun control, actually vote based on that issue.
Not even the Virginia Tech massacre or the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords did much to sway public opinion in any lasting way, or to change the basic dynamics of the political debate. So politically toxic is gun control understood to be that the Bloomberg-led coalition doesn't position itself as a gun-control group at all: it is very deliberately named Mayors Against Illegal Guns (as opposed to, say, "Mayors Against Guns"); it is a group that is against crime, not the rights of legal gun-owners, etc.
So, for example, they didn't oppose legislation that made guns legal on Amtrak and in public parks, but they do argue for a background-check system that will keep weapons away from people who probably shouldn't have them, like those on terrorist-watch lists or who have a record of mental illness.
But Feinblatt says that since its advent in 2006, Mayors Against Illegal Guns has won a number of affirmative victories. The mayor has helped get gun-control-friendly state senators elected in Virginia, where many of the illegal guns found used in New York City crimes originate. The organization has helped convince the nation's biggest gun retailer, Walmart, to commit to tightening its sales policies. It has employed Kroll to conduct stings in Ohio and Virginia to demonstrate how easy it is to buy guns there via sites like Craiglist and GunListings.com, even when the buyer admits he'd have difficulty passing a background check. The organization is now in talks with some of those website operators and Feinblatt says a deal is likely.
Again though, these are relatively modest achievements.
"The battles that they're winning are very, very minor skirmishes," Wilson said.
This won't change until politicians believe the mayor's coalition, or someone, is in a position to make it worth their while—or survivable, even—to anger the N.R.A.
"Politicians believe that the N.R.A. is capable of moving an election, either toward them or against them," said Feinblatt.
OMG, Bloomberg: When will you wake up and realize that We The People have already awoken a long time ago to the attacks on our God Given Bill of Rights, and are not going to stand for it any longer??
ESPECIALLY to the attacks on our 2nd Amendment Rights.
We know full well that your goal - along with the goal of ALL tyrants and disctators, is the abolishment of We The People's God Given Rights, so that you can fully control us and do with us as you please.
We know full well that you do not give one tiny hoot about our safety - do not think for one second that we believe this lie - and we will expose the truth every minute of every day.
We have - and will continue to - vote out every single traitor to their Oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. Most of your fellow politicians are not billionaires like you are, and all they care about is being re-elected and keeping their jobs. Less & less of them will stand with you in betraying the Constitution as they realize that it is the exact formula for how NOT to get re-elected.
And don't think for a moment that we are not aware of Soros' evil empire's reach, by the way. You've aligned yourself with a monster who took relish in sending off his own people to the Nazi gas showers, and he misses that thrill so much that he's trying to get the same rush by destroying this Nation. Don't think we don't know about all the shady dealings, the secret payoffs, the quiet, unspoken millions of dollars in financial support, the paid-off criminals who give false testimony at congressional hearings, etc etc.
Oooh, we're so on to your evil plans & ways.
The Founding Fathers look at you and shake their heads at your shame.
I would rather a gun lobby write gun laws than someone that knows nothing about guns....
Same would go for economic policies being written by economists, laws for medicine being written by medical professionals, laws for law by lawyers, etc etc etc
[Quote] In 1994, Republicans regained control of both the House and the Senate for the first time in nearly half a century, partly on the strength of a backlash against the prior year's passage of the Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act, which mandated the creation of a national background-check system known as NICS. [/Quote]
~~~~~~~~~~~
Total fallacy. The Brady Law did not initially propose the NICS which was actually long proposed by the NRA. Brady wanted a worthless "30 day waiting period" as the vanguard of their bill. NRA's "instant check system" proposal was adopted instead because waiting periods are worthless. NRA still supports the NICS as an access to the NCIC data base to keep guns out of the hands of convicted criminals and the seriously mentally ill. Finally, what angered Americans during the '94 midterm elections was the ban on many semi-automatic rifles, including hunting and sporting rifles, and magazine bans limiting magazines to 10-rounds.
Gimme back my Bullets!!!
How is it possible to write an article about the goal of matching the NRA without mentioning the fact that the NRA has evolved away from its membership roots into operating largely as a PR, marketing, and lobbying operation for the arms industry? They used to be proud of their non-affiliation with the gun industry, but in the past decade they have actively courted corporate "partners" who are now making up a significant chunk of their funding. It's still a minority, but if you read the analysis of their corporate support at http://www.vpc.org/studies/bloodmoney.pdf you will note that beyond the hard money, they play games with non-cash event sponsorships and sweetheart deals and their divided structure that obscures how dependent on the industry they may be. The NRA has at least 3 quasi-independent parts and they are not entirely transparent in their finances, but the lobbying operation (NRA-ILA) is largely opaque. It is that political part of the organization that has become little more than a mouthpiece for the gun industry while they have let their traditional support of training and safety education devolve into industry marketing programs.
It is telling and disappointing that the response to MAIG and similar efforts for the rational enforcement of existing laws trigger a knee-jerk screeching response from the NRA and their supporters. For years the best argument the NRA made against more gun control laws was to point out the chronic failure to clean up the mess of existing laws and rationally enforce them. MAIG is now making the same argument and choosing their battles primarily against loopholes that only make sense from the perspective of the gun industry's bottom line, and they are met with screams of "TREASON!" for it.
None of these professional anti-firearms lobby groups will ever be able to be a 'counterweight' to the NRA for one simple reason. The NRA is a bottom-up organization, whose agenda is driven by it's millions of members. These anti-rights groups are top-down, with public figures using them as a front for their political advantage.
Their membership is one of convenience, and they are not as passionately tied to the issue because they have no investment. People will fight harder for something they have (firearms rights) than something they don't.
As mentioned in the article, NRA members will often vote for or against a candidate strictly based on their record on firearms legislation. This is absolutely not true of the typical members of anti-firearms groups, their support tends to be spread thinly across a large number of causes, with 'gun control' being just one of them.
This laser-focus makes politicians think twice about crossing the NRA, not because it's some kind of lobbying bogey-man, but because it's members are very effective in making their will known in voting booth.
The Constitution should be the guide when proposing gun control laws. I believe that the NRA sees things that way as well. Before NRA detractors throw out the "gun industry" lobby distortion one should first look-up the size of the gun industry. I work for a casualty insurance company and our revenue, not the revenue of the insurance industry itself, just my company is $7 billion more than the whole of the American gun industry.Yet, my industry is probably the most regulated. How can that be if you believe in the lobby power of the gun industry?
"The mayor has helped get gun-control-friendly state senators elected in Virginia"
And the State Senate just a month ago repealed the One Gun A Month law and sent it on for the governor's signature into law. I don't think the NRA fears these sorts of "victories". MAIG can have as many of these as they can engineer.
And I wouldn't count national reciprocity out yet. The Senate changes in 9 months. Also, the House could always make passage of reciprocity a condition of a Senate or a presidential priority. We are sneaky that way - it's the way the Amtrack and National Parks changes were made into law. You can multiple subjects into one bill at the federal level. There is no single-subject requirement, like there is in my state (Illinois). It could always get passed as the Something For Everyone Omnibus Act of 2012 or 2013.
Yeah, great, a billionaire whose main purpose in life is to strip away my rights, and facilitate fascism and dictatorship. Not enough bad things could every happen to that POS.
So Feinblatt said....."I mean, Obama has done nothing virtually to tamper or restrict gun rights." His words..He admits to gun RIGHTS...and he is calling for tampering with and restricting...RIGHTS?
He is admitting this.....and I should trust him why?
Grumpybozo,
Problem with your analysis of the NRA is twofold. First off, you link to a antigun group webpage to support your arguments. Second, the NRA was established in 1874, but it wasn't until 1968 that it was forced to get into real politics, and then with a seperate branch, called the NRA-ILA (Institute for Legistlative Action), which is the political arm of the NRA. The NRA has not moved away from the membership, but in fact, continues to grow, especially in dark times when gun control threatens. What you read from the NRA is more likely to be from the ILA entity.
The NRA is still the gun owners best friend, even though not all gun owners may agree with it's policies.
Bloomberg and his MAIG group are a collective of whiny idiots who want to blame inanimate objects for their crime problems, cause it's so much easier and cheaper than actually punishing criminals. Never mind that history has shown gun control just doesn't work.
EXCERPT: "But Feinblatt says that since its advent in 2006, Mayors Against Illegal Guns has won a number of affirmative victories. The mayor has helped get gun-control-friendly state senators elected in Virginia, where many of the illegal guns found used in New York City crimes originate. . . It has employed Kroll to conduct stings in Ohio and Virginia to demonstrate how easy it is to buy guns there . . ."
What about the enactment this year of Virginia House Bill 940 and Senate Bill 323, repealing their the gun rationing (one handgun-a-month) statute passed in 1993? Does not sound like Bloomberg was successful in getting many "gun-control-friendly state senators elected in Virginia" last year.
What about the sixteen states -- Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia -- making it a crime (including a felony in some cases) to engage in straw-purchase/Bloomberg-style sting operations as done in the past?
These do not sound like victories for MAIG.
How does Bloomy explain these facts about his colleagues:
Convictions and Guilty Pleas of Current and Former MAIG Members
Sheila Dixon – Baltimore, Maryland
David Delle Donna – Guttenberg, New Jersey (www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/04/jurors_in_the_federal_corrupti.html)
Beth Flansbaum-Talabisco – Tamarac, Florida (www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/04/2150326/tamarac-appoints-new-commissioner...)
Jerramiah T. Healy – Jersey City, New Jersey (www.nytimes.com/2007/06/23/nyregion/23mayor.html?_r=4&oref=slogin)
Gordon Jenkins – Monticello, New York (www.midhudsonnews.com/News/2011/April/15/Jenkins_guilty-15Apr11.htm)
Kwame Kilpatrick – Detroit, Michigan (www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,416543,00.html)
Larry P. Langford – Birmingham, Alabama (http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2009/10/larry_langford_found_guilty.html)
Samuel Rivera – Passaic, New Jersey (www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/former_passaic_mayor_samuel_ri.html)
William P. “Will” Wynn – Austin, Texas (www.dailytexanonline.com/state-local/will-wynn-charged-with-assault-sent...)
Investigations, Arrests and Indictments of Current and Former MAIG Members
April Capone Almon – New Haven, Connecticut
Gary Becker – Racine, Wisconsin (www.journaltimes.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_86c900d8-9372-1...)
Peter Cammarano – Hoboken, New Jersey (www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/hoboken_mayor_peter_cammarano_2.html)
Richard P. Corkery – Coaldale, Pennsylvania (www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/07/pa_mayor_faces_28_counts_of_...)
Sheila Dixon – Baltimore, Maryland (http://breakingnews.baltimoresun.com/2009/08/05/dixons-trial-postponed-u...)
Joseph V. Doria, Jr. – Bayonne, New Jersey (www.politickernj.com/max/31646/sources-dorias-house-raided)
Dennis Elwell – Secaucus, New Jersey (www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/report_says_seacaucus_mayor_de.html)
Gerald D. Jennings – Albany, New York (www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=773606)
Frank Melton – Jackson, Mississippi (www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,379224,00.html)
George Motz – Quogue, New York (www.27east.com/story_detail.cfm?id=164771)
Eddie A. Perez – Hartford, Connecticut (www.courant.com/community/hartford/hc-hartford-perez-court-0825.artaug25...)
Anthony Suarez – Ridgefield, New Jersey (http://bergennow.com/index.php/20090723425/Ridgefield/Mayor-Anthony-Suar...
How about joining Gun Owners Against Illegal Mayors (www.stopillegalmayors.com)?
While we are talking about gun control, let's get a drug control group. Wait haven't we been trying to control drugs now for a few years at a cost of a few billion dollars each year?. Elitist New Yorker trying to tell the rest of the country what to do. Thinking about it, Mr. Holder didn't do such a great job of controlling the flow of weapons to Mexican drug lords.
Liberal NYC judges release repeat violent offenders onto the streets, then a cop gets shot and Bloomberg blames...someone in South Carolina.
Makes sense to me.