Shooting Wire Takes on Anti-Gun Mayors
Here’s what Jim Sheperd has to say in today’s Shooting Wire about Bloomberg and his crew seeking to end private gun ownership, at least for those of us who aren’t filthy rich and who aren’t filling up their campaign chests.
As the November elections get closer, it’s looking more and more like gun owners are going to be, well, under the gun again if the liberal politicians gain control of the Congress.To help move the occasionally too-silent majority back into the flow of events, conservative groups and gun rights organizations are working to make certain we’re all aware of the fact that there has never been any letdown in the drive to disarm Americans. Efforts to limit gun ownership have moved from frontal to indirect attacks, but the attacks are no less deliberate.
On Wednesday, the two favorite sons of the anti-gun movement, Michael Bloomberg and Richard M. Daley, mayors of New York City and Chicago, Illinois, respectively, reconvened one of their mayoral conclaves. They and their “counterparts” from across the country gathered in Chicago to share their collective “successes and frustrations” in their “never-ending war on gun violence.”
The daylong political event was one of three strategy sessions called by Mayors Against Illegal Guns. That’s an organization formed last year by Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.
During this high-level photo opportunity, er, strategy session, Bloomberg was asked how he could possibly hope to counter the National Rifle Association a group with political muscle and money. Bloomberg countered with the famous Howard Beale quote from “Network”. “Mayors,” Bloomberg said, “representing tens of millions of people are coming together and saying ‘we’re not going to take it anymore.’”
It was correctly brought to the attention of these mad mayors that despite being a coalition of 109 mayors from 44 states, they’ve not become well known for their record in the courts. Mayor Daley, for example, commenced what was called a “pioneering” lawsuit against the firearms industry. In 2004, that lawsuit was tossed by the Illinois Supreme Court.
Ergo, the Mayors Against Illegal Guns. An organization the members say represents a “counterweight” to the “disproportionate influence” the gun lobby has on federal gun policies.
Without belaboring a point, their organization is, indeed, one that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Neither, however, does it represent the end of the firearms industry or the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
It represents another obvious sign that the profession once described as the Fourth Estate, journalism, has now decided that it is no longer proper to simply report the news. It is incumbent upon serious journalists to steer the poor sheep of the electorate in the correct direction. As I heard it said earlier this week, the Fourth Estate seems to be looking suspiciously like a Fifth Column movement, naysaying and downplaying anything that might look even remotely like the United States is anything other than the global bully.
Personally, I’m going to hang onto the collective frustration and anger I have with my former colleagues for a few more weeks. Then, I’m going to walk into the voting booth and do my best to completely cancel the efforts of at least one liberal.
Hopefully, everyone who owns a firearm – or believes in the right for anyone to own a legal firearm – will walk into a voting booth and do the same thing.
If we don’t vote, we run the risk of losing that right, too.
*applause*
I hope those of you who live in cities with mayors who are joining for no reason other than free trips and photo ops will continue to raise hell like SayUncle has with Knoxville. As I pointed out to him, his pages talking about the mayor’s involvement in a group trying to restrict ownership of firearms and the links from Glenn to his posts are the top results after the City’s page and the wikipedia entry when you Google his name. Good for Uncle.
No obviously related posts.

[...] Bitter notes that The Shooting Wire is taking on the anti-gun mayors: Without belaboring a point, their organization is, indeed, one that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Neither, however, does it represent the end of the firearms industry or the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. [...]