11:40 am Aug. 2, 20128
In the weeks following the Aurora shooting massacre, Michael Bloomberg, the contemporary face of the gun control movement, appeared on one national TV show after another denouncing the political cowardice of the nation's leaders and the weak gun regulations resulting from it.
At the same time, the mayor has said that he is actually not a “gun control” advocate.
“To those that say, ‘Look, this is about gun control,’ it isn’t,” Mr. Bloomberg said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" recently. “It’s about crime control.”
(The producers at "Morning Joe," apparently oblivious to that fine distinction, complemented the segment with a slug at the bottom of the frame that read, “Gun control debate,” illustrated with an assault rifle crossing an American flag.)
And yesterday, the Times quoted John Feinblatt, the mayor’s chief policy adviser, saying, ''We're about crime control. We're not about gun control.”
So what's the difference, precisely?
"In fact, we've made this distinction since the mayor started his efforts," Feinblatt told Capital on Wednesday. "And I think really what it boils down to is that what we're focused on is the person, not the gun. You know, our problem in this city and our problem across the country is not the problem of legal guns. It's the problem of when criminals or the mentally ill or drug addicts get guns ... When you have a 14-year-old who's shot in the Bronx or a three-year-old shot in Brooklyn, it's never with a legal gun."
So Mayors Against Illegal Guns does not want to be seen engaging in an argument about the right to own guns, but rather on the things that would keep guns out of the hands of criminals and mentally ill people by strengthening the nation's porous background-check system and closing the gun-show and private-sale loopholes, which allow weapons to be sold without background checks.
"And I think what has always differentiated us from some of the gun control groups, is we've never made the Second Amendment the issue," said Feinblatt.
But what about the mayor's support for a new federal assault weapon ban? Doesn't that constitute a gun control? And don't all participants in the debate over guns claim to respect the Second Amendment, taking issue simply with the National Rifle Associations modern-day interpretation of it?
"I think why the mayor has said that he supports the assault-weapons ban is that there just is no legitimate purpose for owning an assault rifle, other than to kill somebody," said Feinblatt.
Pro-gun-control politicians have considered the phrase "gun control" politically toxic since at least 1994, when the Republicans took control of Congress for the first time in decades, helped by what seemed to be a backlash against the Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act, which mandated the creation of a national background check system.
Al Gore's loss to George W. Bush in 2000, too, was attributed partly to his gun control agenda. It was a basic premise of Howard Dean's liberal-truth-to-power presidential campaign in 2004 that his party needed to get out of the business of gun legislation entirely if it was ever again to win a national election. Barack Obama largely steered clear of the issue when he won in 2008.
Despite Columbine, Virginia Tech, Oikos, Gabbie Giffords, and now, Aurora, gun control continues to poll poorly, with the Pew Research Center recently reporting that support for efforts to “control gun ownership” remains essentially unchanged, pre- and post-Aurora.
There was a time, long after most liberals stopped using the phrase, that Bloomberg himself refused to shy away from it.
In 2005, introducing a new package of legislation, for example: “The next four bills before me all relate to the issue of gun control,” Bloomberg said, in his prepared remarks. “Gun control is a vital part of our continuing battle against crime.”
(Marc LaVorgna, the mayor's spokesman, said in response, "It does use the phrase, but the description of the bill is exactly in line with where we are today: 'four pieces of legislation that will make it harder for guns to fall into the hands of criminals.'")
The year after he hailed his "gun control" measures, Bloomberg co-founded an organization called Mayors Against Illegal Guns, whose very name presaged the politically modulated rhetoric that was to come.
It was not, after all, “Mayors Against Guns,” or "Mayors Against Hand Guns.” Its focus was on “illegality” and, by extension, crime.
By September 2010, the mayor was aggressively making the not-gun-control argument.
“'There are 12,000 gun murders a year in our country, and this report makes it perfectly clear how common-sense trafficking laws can prevent many of them,'' Bloomberg told the Times. ''For mayors around the country, this isn't about gun control. It's about crime control.''
So actually, as his spokesman contends, the mayor has been consistent on the substance; it's the words that have changed, for whatever that's worth.
"Many in the 'gun control' community prefer to avoid that term," said Adam Winkler, a law professor at UCLA, and the author of Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, in an email. "Gun control is politically loaded and, these days, politically toxic. But who is being fooled? No strong supporter of gun rights is going to vote for candidates who promote gun control under a different guise."
“I think if you look at the mayor’s actual proposals and then contrast that with the labels, certainly he’s a fairly staunch gun control advocate,” agreed Nicholas Johnson, a Fordham University law professor who’s written extensively about the Second Amendment, adding, “Saying your interest is something else, even though your programs are quite clearly in the traditional gun control vein, muddies the water."
Bloombag and Feinblatt are liars. Based on Bloombag's 2005 laws, their NYPD has sent notices out to lawful rifle and shotgun permit holders in the last several months BANNING their lever action hunting rifles like Winchester and Marlin 30-30 deer rifles, which have fixed non-detachable internal tube fed magazines. These rifles are the most common hunting rifles in all of North America and have been legal in NYC since the first Henry rifle was made in 1860. When Bloombag says he is not about infringing on the Second Amendment, he is LYING.
Bloomberg can call it what he wants. He will always be know as a gun grabber. Sound like he just want to make a bunch of laws to make criminals out of law abiding civilians, then go after them as criminals. Saying crime control. Wonder if he owns any shares in the private ran by the prison company Pinkerton. More than likely he does and want to see them full so he make even more money.
If Bloomberg is only against criminals getting guns why did he oppose guns in luggage on trains?
This is all political manipulation. At bottom, if Bloomberg and his confederates had their 'druthers, the American people would be disarmed to the extent of those in, say, Germany.
Which is unacceptable in the United States. We have a tradition, common law, and the Bill of Rights upheld in SCOTUS precedent protecting our right to arms, whether or not elitists like Bloomberg accept it.
Case closed.
Bloomberg, take a hike.
Yet another jewish twit promoting zionist agenda for complete citizen disarmament. When the cretin midget inbred jewboy fires his bodyguards and israhole disarms their nukes, then and only then can this cretin even begin to blather on about his pinko rhetoric.
An alarming but overlooked statistic is that only about half of US homicides are commited using guns. (The percentage in other developed countries is much higher.) Eliminating guns would force the demented to use more gruesome, and indiscriminate methods of killing others. Thank you, but I'd rather have a gun to protect myself, and those around me from people who are untent on killing us.
How many armed guards does Bloomberg have?
'Everybody, give up your family's protection - it'll be ok..... but I'll just keep mine, thank you very much..'
Wow hear the rabid mouth foaming gun nuts chiming in on every gun control post out there. How about you all pay the cost for every crime spree caused by an illegal gun? It's a fact you all have blood on your hands every time you cheer at the defeat of every action to disarm creeps and mentally ill from accessing weapons.
Furthermore the arguments you cite in favor of gun ownership are slim flights of fancy about the odd fable of a lone shopkeeper fending off an armed thug. The truth is if the thug can't get a gun then nobody has to worry. The 2nd amendment has been warped in recent decades (by NRA lobbying) and needs to be repealed.
Look at Mexico -- everyone has guns and it's a total mess there. Conversely, Canada has no guns and everyone is fine.
If you can't connect the lines from Columbine to today, you're just a sick person who jerks off anytime a schoolyard gets shot up. More guns just begets more violence. The nasty tone you all take in forum posts and news comments show how twisted your logic is. You just want guns at any cost even if your own mom was shot dead or your kids riddling down by some unstable vermin.
And you know, it just might take some profound personal tragedy for you to glimpse what so many have wrought at your hands, the NRA machinations.
Repeal the second amendment. Shut down the gun running addiction in this country, and move on to real public discourse about improving our educational systems, instead of mopping up blood soaked classrooms of kids killed by NRA jerkoffs and their kind.