Free Republic

Last week it happened again. Another school. Another disturbed young person. Another needless firearm legally purchased. Another good person dead as a result. Last Tuesday, a 28 year-old former Spanish teacher named Shane Schumerth walked into the office of Dale Regan, the principal of the school where he had been recently fired, pulled out an AK-47 assault rifle and killed her before committing suicide. A week earlier, T.J. Lane, a 17 year-old Ohio boy, took out his .22 semi-automatic pistol and killed three people and injured two more. And the week before that, a third-grader grabs the family's legally bought...

NEW YORK — Among the slick, million-dollar ads for the likes of Pepsi and Honda during the Super Bowl this Sunday, viewers in Washington will see a far more modest spot. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino will be sitting on a couch touting an issue most politicians avoid like the plague: gun control. The two mayors, whose local teams face off in the big game, are making the pitch for Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), the organization they co-founded in 2006.

Some of the country's most prominent gun reformers are urging President Obama to promote stricter firearm rules in tonight's national address. Mayors Against Illegal Guns — a group headed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino – called on Obama this week to use the State of the Union speech to press Congress for tighter background checks on potential weapons buyers. "Last year, 12,000 Americans were murdered with guns," Bloomberg and Menino wrote Monday in a letter to Obama. "But the grim fact that guns are used to murder 34 people a day is barely...

While most City legislators have taken aim at protecting the City’s stringent gun laws, two Queens councilmen have put more lax gun laws in their sights. Queens Councilmen Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) and rising GOP star Eric Ulrich (R-Ozone Park) have joined Staten Island Republicans Vincent Ignizio and James Oddo to oppose a Council resolution that voiced its displeasure with a bill approved in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives. The bill would allow a resident of one state who has a license to carry a concealed handgun to carry that gun in a different state, regardless of individual state law....

On December 22, registered nurse and fourth-year medical student Meredith Graves, from Tennessee, was visiting the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. Ms. Graves, rather than abdicating responsibility for her security to others, was carrying a defensive handgun, as she is licensed to do in Tennessee. That, unfortunately, avails her nothing in New York. When she saw the "No Guns" sign before entering, she did her best to comply with the law, asking a security guard where she could check her gun. The guard directed her to a police officer, who promptly arrested her for violation of New York's laws...

Gun control advocates were on Capitol Hill Tuesday afternoon to ask members of Congress to pass legislation that would tighten gun-buying restrictions. It was part of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns campaign, led by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Tom Menino, to make it more difficult for convicted criminals and people found mentally ill from purchasing guns.—Governing.com Founded in 2006 with 15 mayors at its core, including former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, Mayors Against Illegal Guns has become a powerful voice in the gun prohibition movement, while hardly uttering a squeak about some of its own members...

Bitter at Shall Not Be Questioned has a post on the late mayor of Freeland Borough, Pennsylvania, Tim Martin, who had been a member of MAIG. Mayor Martin passed away on September 2, 2010 due to cancer. Nonetheless, he has either been listed in advertisements or has signed letters to Congress and the President since that time on behalf of Mayor Bloomberg and his Illegal Mayors. I didn't realize that Bloomberg had such supernatural powers! In fact, not only do they claim him as a member, but the deceased mayor has signed his name to at least two advertisements, three...

Mayors Against Illegal Guns is a gun-control coalition founded by Michael Bloomberg and Thomas Menino, the mayors of New York and Boston, respectively. Bloomberg is an Independent who used to be a Republican, and Menino is a Democrat, but they share similar nanny-state proclivities. For example, back in April, Menino banned soft drinks, sports drinks, and sweetened iced tea from city property, ostensibly to combat rising obesity rates. Mayors Against Illegal Guns spends a lot of its time agitating against concealed-carry laws, which are incompatible with the kind of helpless citizenry Bloomberg and Menino love to see wrapped in swaddling...

Increasing numbers of American citizens, including more than 340,000 here in Washington, have armed themselves and are swelling the ranks of those officially licensed to carry because they understand that their safety is ultimately their personal responsibility. That is the overwhelming sentiment in an admittedly unscientific poll, with responses still coming in. Yesterday, this column invited readers to explain why they carry, and they have in large numbers, via private e-mails, several chat lists and on five popular gun rights forums, including Defensive Carry, Seattle Guns, Hunting-Washington, Northwest Firearms, Open Carry and Gun Rights Media. Many of the stories are...

Chinese police officers inventory seized firearmsNew York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is on a war path against gun owners – again. This time he is exploiting an incident that occurred over Labor Day weekend between NYC police officers and one armed criminal gunman that resulted in the tragic shooting and death of an innocent bystander.Bloomberg is calling for Federal involvement, regulation and enforcement of gun control rules in both NYC and in every city, state, in the Nation. Except he neglects to tell us that gun control rules does not reduce violent crime rates. Instead his real goal is...

Philanthropist and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg​ is the kind of anti-freedom politician every gun owner should despise. Whether it is the food we eat or the kind of car we drive, Bloomberg likes to stick his nose in other people’s business, and tell us what to do. Bloomberg’s viewpoints are not just for the New York City folks either, but for all of us, and when it comes to his position on guns, his ego reaches new, obscene levels. Instrumental in assembling “Mayors Against Illegal Guns," which boosts 500-plus members across the Nation, Bloomberg is on a crusade...

If you’re one of the nearly 71 million Americans who live in the four southwest border states, some of your gun purchases could soon be reported to the federal government. If you don’t like that—and no gun owner should—read on, because this may be our first big head-on gun control battle against the Obama administration. The fight began with a bureaucratically worded “Emergency Notice of Information Collection Under Review,” published in the Dec. 17 “Federal Register”—the daily publication where all proposed federal rules make their debut. It announced that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives plans to require...

The new head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is pushing for screenings of all gun purchases. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the current law, which allows private firearm sales without background checks, is "outrageous." The Florida Democrat is sponsoring a soon-to-be-released proposal extending the screening requirements to all gun purchases, commercial or private. "It is outrageous that gun buyers evade the background-check system every day, even in broad daylight," Wasserman Schultz said Monday at a gun-reform rally in Miami sponsored by Mayors Against Illegal Guns. "While we likely cannot end all gun violence, we certainly can do much, much...

Jacksonville mayoral candidates Mike Hogan and Alvin Brown are expected to agree on little leading up to next month's election, but both oppose the city's continued role in a national program Mayor John Peyton joined seeking a way to curb gun violence.Hogan said he believes the Mayors Against Illegal Guns program is an attempt to rob people of their Second Amendment right to bear firearms rather than being anti-crime. His website calls it a "deceptively named national organization that often puts gun control over crime prevention" — a position reinforced by the National Rifle Association, which supports Hogan.Brown, asked about...

Anyone remember when President Obama invited Republicans to a sit-down on health care? The Prez proceeded to dominate the “discussions,” completely ignored Republican suggestions and rammed through one of the largest and most unpopular pieces of legislation in United States history. That’s just one example of the President’s bogus bi-partisanship: the Commander-in-Chief’s desire to appear centrist without actually being centrist. Is it any wonder that National Rifle Association jefe Wayne LaPierre greeted Obama’s invitation to meet with the Prez and gun control groups to discuss current gun laws with his own invitation to the President to fuck off and die...

A fundamental principle of a free people is the ability to transfer property to someone else without government intervention. In the case of firearms, it is often a tradition to pass on a gun from one generation to another. Recently a group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns co-chaired by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, commissioned a poll to determine how the public felt about tightening background checks on people that bought guns. It will come as little surprise that a group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns wants additional restrictive legislation on the already restrictive process and they even bought...

Sam Stein Sam Stein HuffPost Reporting stein@huffingtonpost.com GET UPDATES FROM Sam Like 983 Obama Administration To Hold Gun Policy Meetings With Goal Of Policy Changes Obama First Posted: 03/14/11 02:08 PM Updated: 03/14/11 02:08 PM Important Funny Typical Scary Outrageous Amazing Innovative Finally Read More: Arizona Shooting, Barack Obama, Gabrielle Giffords, Gabrielle Giffords Shooting, Gun Control, Obama Arizona Shooting, Obama Gun Debate, Obama Gun Policy, Obama Guns, Obama Tucson, Politics, Politics News, US News, Politics News share this story 112 90 10 1,711 Get Politics Alerts Sign Up Submit this story digg reddit stumble WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration has...

WASHINGTON — Administration officials say that President Obama, largely silent about gun control since the Tucson shooting carnage, will address the issue soon, potentially reopening a long-dormant debate on one of the nation’s most politically volatile issues. The officials did not indicate what measures, if any, Mr. Obama might support; with Republicans in control of the House and many Democrats fearful of the gun lobby’s power, any legislation faces long odds for passage. Among the skeptics is the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada. Still, Mr. Obama has come under increased pressure to speak out from gun-control advocates,...

In the wake of the Tucson shootings, CBS News and CNN/Opinion Research Corp. -- among other organizations -- conducted polls asking Americans about their views on gun control. The CBS poll results indicated "there is no significant change in public views on the issue of gun control and gun rights." According to the CNN/ORC poll, 69 percent said they "have not changed their opinion" that more gun control is needed. Then, on Jan. 18, Mayors Against Illegal Guns announced the results of a poll it commissioned which, essentially, confirmed the same results but, somehow, indicate that Americans want and need...

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the shooting of an Arizona congresswoman should spark a renewed gun control debate, calling accused shooter Jared Lee Loughner “a disgrace to democracy” as he advocated changes in federal gun policy. “This case is fundamentally about a mentally ill drug abuser who had access to guns and shouldn’t have,” Bloomberg said at a news conference Tuesday with members of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The political fallout from the attack on Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has overwhelmingly focused on the heated state of political discourse, with debates on gun policy largely absent. But Bloomberg, a...