Michael Bloomberg

Uncategorized

Bloomberg’s Nannystate Goes High Tech

January 18, 2012 by

Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned just posted on a potential new technology being tested in New York City that would detect a weapon on a person at a distance. It is a scanner that can be mounted on a police car or in a stationary location which measures energy radiating from a person. They are looking for anything that would block it.

The NY Civil Liberties Union is not so sure it isn’t an invasion of your rights with which I agree. However, bear in mind that this is Mayor Bloomberg’s New York. As Sebastian notes, “Bloomberg has never been remarkably concerned about American liberties, however, so it doesn’t surprise me this is coming out of New York.”

The video below from CBS New York concludes with a comment from a guy who says, “Who cares?” Maybe he’ll start to care when he gets flung up against a wall by a cop just because he is carrying an aluminum wallet (as Seen on TV!)

UPDATE: The New York Daily News has a report on this as well. I can foresee gangs sending out decoys with a piece of metal in the shape of a gun to lure the cops away from the scene of a crime.

Uncategorized

Cultural Ignorance

January 3, 2012 by 9 Comments

Mayor Michael Bloomberg suffers from cultural ignorance.

Late last week, he attributed the two glassine packets of a white powder in the purse of Tennessee med student Meredith Graves to cocaine. He didn’t say they were alleged to be cocaine but that they were cocaine.

When asked whether the woman deserved any leniency, Mayor Michael Bloomberg indicated to reporters at a press conference in Brooklyn today that she had other problems.

“Let’s assume she didn’t get arrested for carrying a gun,” he said. “She probably would have gotten arrested for the cocaine that was in her pocket.”

Chemical tests proved the “alleged cocaine” was nothing of the sort according to the Manhattan D.A.’s office. If I had to make a guess, it was either a Goody’s Headache Powder or a BC Powder. Both products were developed by pharmacists in North Carolina early in the 20th century and consist of aspirin, caffeine, and, in the case of Goody’s, acetaminophen. Both powders are now made and sold by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.

Anyone raised in the South would know what a headache powder was because we’ve seen it since we were infants. However, I guess if you run in certain New York City high society circles like Mayor Bloomberg, white powder in a glassine packet always translates into cocaine.

To encourage cultural literacy in the Office of the Mayor of the City of New York, I would make the following suggestion. Go down to your local pharmacy, get yourself a small package of either BC Powders or Goody’s and mail it to Mayor Bloomberg. If you live in an area that doesn’t sell it, no problem. You can order both Goody’s and BC Powders from Amazon.com and have it shipped directly to Hizzoner.

The mailing address is:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg
Office of the Mayor
City Hall
260 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
Uncategorized

Private Sale Loophole?

December 15, 2011 by 10 Comments

First there was the oxymoronic “gun show loophole”. Now thanks to America’s richest mayor we have the equally moronic “private sale loophole.”

In a press conference held today to announce a new “report” entitled “Point, Click, Fire: An Investigation of Illegal Online Gun Sales”, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched a full frontal attack on private gun sales and Internet classified sites. In a scene reminiscent from his earlier “investigations” involving gun shows, Bloomberg’s private investigators trolled 10 websites and called 125 private sellers. The sites included Craigslist (which doesn’t allow firearms classifieds), Armslist.com, and GlockTalk.com. Supposedly, 77 out of 125 sellers agreed to sell a firearm to someone who self-identified as a prohibited person.

The Investigation

The City hired licensed private investigators supervised by the global investigative firm Kroll to conduct a series of online purchases. Investigators captured audio of telephone calls with private sellers who advertise on websites, and used concealed cameras during in-person interactions. The investigative team placed telephone calls to 125 private sellers who posted online gun advertisements on 10 websites in 14 states, including Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The Results

A clear majority of the sellers – 77 of 125 private sellers – failed the integrity test by agreeing to sell to a purchaser who said he probably couldn’t pass a background check.

Private sellers on Craigslist failed the integrity test at the highest rate, despite the fact that the site says that it prohibits the listing of weapons on its server. On the five websites where investigators contacted the most sellers, an illegal sale was agreed to:

Craigslist.com: 82 percent of the time
Glocktalk.com: 78 percent
Gunlistings.org: 77 percent
KSL.com: 67 percent
Armslist.com: 54 percent

Given these were private detectives and not commissioned police officers, I wonder about the legality of recording either the phone calls as well as the face-to-face transactions. Many states – and I don’t know if the states in question were chosen to avoid this – forbid the recording of conversations unless both parties are aware of it and this goes double for videotaping. These are the same laws being used against the public when they record police encounters that go wrong.

Bloomberg’s report is pushing the following recommendations:

• Federal law should require a background check for every gun sale. Legislation now pending in both chambers of Congress – The Fix Gun Checks Act of 2011 (S.436/H.R.1781 (112th Congress)) – would enact this reform.

• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives(ATF) should improve enforcement of existing laws. ATF should conduct undercover investigations on a variety of websites, track whether guns recovered in crimes were originally sold online and offer online tutorials to train sellers and buyers on federal gun laws governing online sales.

• Websites should adopt tougher protocols to deter crime. Websites that permit gun sales should demand transparency from sellers and buyers, facilitate reporting
of suspicious behavior by site users and swiftly remove prohibited listings.

The report also brings in the shootings on the campuses of Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University. As has been reported before, the shooter at Virginia Tech purchased one of his pistols over the Internet. However, and this report downplays it, the pistol was shipped to a FFL in Virginia, the shooter then filled out an ATF Form 4473, and then a NICS check was run.

As unfortunately is to be expected, the mainstream media is lapping this up. The story was aired on ABC News as the number two story of the day. It was introduced by Diane Sawyer with her most concerned look and was uncritically reported by Pierre Thomas who hung on Mayor Bloomberg’s every word.

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

While I don’t expect the Fix Gun Checks Act of 2011 to go anywhere in this Congress, any move made by Mayor Bloomberg and his Illegal Mayors is to be watched. Unlike the rest of the gun prohibitionists, Bloomberg has the money and the business acumen needed to have an impact on gun rights and firearm ownership.

Uncategorized

Bloomberg Willing To Give Holder A Pass

December 9, 2011 by

While he usually has no problem whatsoever in criticizing anything related to firearms, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is refusing to criticize Attorney General Eric Holder over Operation Fast and Furious. Unlike even ardent gun prohibitionist Jackie Hilly of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence who says the Administration needs to take responsibility, Bloomberg won’t even go that far.

According to CBS New York:

Bloomberg seems clearly willing to give Holder a pass.

“I’ve never been into looking at the past and trying to blame people for the past,” the mayor said.

What a damn wimp not to mention a hypocrite. Bloomberg has no problem blaming gun shows in Arizona and other states for crime in New York City. However, in one of the few cases with a clear trail of evidence of illegal purchases by straw buyers, he won’t say anything negative about the operation or those who ran it. He is just plain, flat out, pathetic.

Uncategorized

Blah, Blah, Blah….Waaa!

November 17, 2011 by 5 Comments

Mayor Bloomberg and his Illegal Mayors are not happy. They want you to know that. That is why they have released this whining press release bemoaning the fact that the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed HR 822 today.

“Ten months after a disturbed man carried a concealed weapon to shoot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others, six fatally, the House voted today to gut state laws on who can carry concealed, loaded guns in public. This was an absolutely embarrassing display of putting special interests and fund raising ahead of public safety.

“A majority of the House ignored the advice of police, prosecutors, domestic violence experts, faith leaders and more than 600 mayors who made clear that this measure will put police and communities at greater risk. Many members also cast aside their usual respect for the authority of states to decide how to protect public safety in their communities.

“With unemployment over nine percent and Congress taking no action to create jobs, it is astonishing that catering to the Washington gun lobby is the top priority for House Republicans. The vast majority of actual gun-owning Americans oppose this bill: 82 percent of them want states, not Washington, to decide who can carry concealed, loaded guns in public.

“We applaud the Democratic leadership, particularly Chairman Conyers, for waging a principled fight against this bill, and offer thanks to Republican members who stood up for police and public safety, including Representatives Peter King, Michael Grimm, Bob Turner, Dan Lungren, Robert Dold and others.

“The debate now moves to the Senate, which had the sense to reject this measure in 2009. We urge them to do so again.”

In their call to states rights, Mayors Michael Bloomberg of New York and Thomas Menino of Boston remind me of a certain Alabama governor who famously said in his inaugural speech “and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” You just need to replace the word segregation with gun control and you have essentially the same argument that George Wallace made in 1963. Wallace repudiated his words late in his life saying they were one of his life’s biggest regrets. I doubt Bloomberg and Menino will ever repudiate their anti-gun rights bigotry.

Uncategorized

Occupy Gracie Mansion

October 31, 2011 by 4 Comments

Grace Mansion for the uninitiated is the official residence of the Mayor of New York. For the last several years it has been occupied by Michael Bloomberg, billionaire, nanny stater, and gun control proponent.

Not content to attempt to impose New York City-style gun control on the rest of the nation through his Mayor Against Illegal Guns, Bloomberg is now trying to buy six State Senate seats in the commonwealth of Virginia in an effort to block gun rights reforms there.

Bloomberg (I) has donated $25,000 of his own money to six Senate Democratic candidates, who are involved in some of the closest races in the state: Sen. Toddy Puller (Fairfax), Sen. Dave Marsden (Fairfax), Sen. George Barker (Prince William), Sen. Mark Herring (Loudoun), Sen. John Miller (Newport News) and Barbara Favola, who is running for an open seat in Arlington.

As noted in The Gothamist, not everyone is happy about Bloomberg’s meddling in their state.

When reached for comment on his donations, a manager at A&P Arms in Hampton, Virginia told a Daily News reporter, “He’s an arrogant bastard who shouldn’t be meddling.” This man will have his chance to tell Bloomberg what he thinks in person: the mayor plans to visit Virginia next week.

John Feinblatt, the mayor’s Criminal Justice Coordinator, is blunt about what they are trying to do.

The state Senate, controlled by Democrats 22-18, has blocked the passage of those bills (repeal of one gun a month and campus carry) – but the party’s hold on power is tenuous.

If these six would lose, the laws (gun rights bills) would sail through, said Feinblatt. A bad situation would get even worse.

The South saw its share of carpetbaggers and scalawags during Reconstruction. It looks like Mayor Bloomberg wants to go back to that era – at least when it comes to Virginia and gun control.

Uncategorized

Quote Of The Day No. 1

September 13, 2011 by

Mayor Bloomberg and his Illegal Mayors are up in arms over the prospect of H.R. 822 – the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011 – passing Congress. So much so that they have started a new website and commissioned another push poll whose results, to be frank, aren’t all that good for the gun prohibitionists.

However, Bob Owens – Confederate Yankee – asks the most pertinent question regarding Bloomberg and MAIG.

Isn’t it interesting that Bloomberg and the largely Democratic MAIG have all the time in the world to disparage lawful citizens, but can’t seem to come together to issue such much as a strongly worded statement again the Obama Administration, elements of which have walked more than 2,000 guns to drug cartels and allowed convicted felons to buy guns in the Midwest?

Uncategorized

Quote Of The Day

September 11, 2011 by 1 Comment

Mark Steyn is a Canadian who gets it as does Canadian blogger Kathy Shaidle.

What’s missing from these commemorations?

Firemen?

Oh, please. There are some pieces of the puzzle we have to leave out. As Mayor Bloomberg’s office has patiently explained, there’s “not enough room” at the official Ground Zero commemoration to accommodate any firemen. “Which is kind of weird,” wrote the Canadian blogger Kathy Shaidle, “since 343 of them managed to fit into the exact same space ten years ago.”

I find this especially poignant since my second cousin Kevin McEntyre is a New York City fireman, who by the grace of God, had gone off duty that morning and was on his way home when the terrorists hit the World Trade Center. Many in his fire company were not so lucky and were among the 343 that died that day. Kevin spent many days afterwards at Ground Zero searching for survivors and then for the bodies of the dead.

Uncategorized

HB 798: Anti-Bloomberg Bill Introduced In North Carolina General Assembly

April 17, 2011 by 3 Comments

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made news over the years by sending his private investigators to gun shows in Arizona and other states. While he portrays his efforts as preventing the flow of “illegal guns” into New York City, it can also be portrayed as an effort to encourage people to commit a felony.

HB 798 was introduced in the North Carolina House last week by Rep. Mark Hilton (R-Catawba). My reading of the bill is that if Bloomberg sent his investigators to North Carolina, then both they and he could be found guilty of a Class F felony for their actions. Other offenses that are Class F felonies in North Carolina include involuntary manslaughter, assault causing serious injury on a law enforcement officer, extortion, bribery, and, oh yes, incest. The average Class F sentence for a first offense is 13-16 months in prison according to sentencing guidelines.

I hope this bill passes and that Mayor Bloomberg sends his minions South. It’d be nice to see Mike picking up trash along the highways of North Carolina.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA

SESSION 2011
H 1
HOUSE BILL 798

Short Title: Fraudulent Firearm Purchase Prevention Act.

(Public)

Sponsors: Representative Hilton (Primary Sponsor).
For a complete list of Sponsors, see Bill Information on the NCGA Web Site.

Referred to:
Judiciary.

April 7, 2011

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

AN ACT to Enact the Fraudulent firearm purchase prevention act.

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1. This act shall be known and may be cited as “The Fraudulent Firearm Purchase Prevention Act.”
SECTION 2. Article 53A of Chapter 14 of the General Statutes is amended by adding a new section to read:
“§ 14‑408.1. Solicit unlawful purchase of firearm; unlawful to provide materially false information regarding legality of firearm or ammunition transfer.
(a) The following definitions apply in this section:
(1) Ammunition. – Any cartridge, shell, or projectile designed for use in a firearm.
(2) Firearm. – A handgun, shotgun, or rifle which expels a projectile by action of an explosion.
(3) Handgun. – A pistol, revolver, or other gun that has a short stock and is designed to be held and fired by the use of a single hand.
(4) Licensed dealer. – A person who is licensed pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 923 to engage in the business of dealing in firearms.
(5) Materially false information. – Information that portrays an illegal transaction as legal or a legal transaction as illegal.
(6) Private seller. – A person who sells or offers for sale any firearm, as defined in G.S. 14‑409.39, or ammunition.
(b) Any person who knowingly solicits, persuades, encourages, or entices a licensed dealer or private seller of firearms or ammunition to transfer a firearm or ammunition under circumstances that the person knows would violate the laws of this State or the United States is guilty of a Class F felony.
(c) Any person who provides to a licensed dealer or private seller of firearms or ammunition information that the person knows to be materially false information with the intent to deceive the dealer or seller about the legality of a transfer of a firearm or ammunition is guilty of a Class F felony.
(d) Any person who willfully procures another to engage in conduct prohibited by this section shall be held accountable as a principal.
(e) This section does not apply to a law enforcement officer acting in his or her official capacity or to a person acting at the direction of the law enforcement officer.”
SECTION 3. This act becomes effective December 1, 2011, and applies to offenses committed on or after that date.