Gun Dealer and Mayor Face Showdown

NY Times ^ | May 22, 2008 | ALAN FEUER

[King of Florida]

When Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg stood at City Hall two years ago to announce that he had just filed suit against several gun shop owners, mainly in the South, it was in a certain fashion the capstone of a signature campaign. Mr. Bloomberg had already bashed the industry in several angry speeches, gone to Washington to pressure congressmen and lobbyists, and made his war against illegal guns a personal crusade.

Now, however, Mr. Bloomberg is likely to answer verbally — and literally in person — for his personal crusade. City officials said on Wednesday that he was virtually certain to take the witness stand next month at a landmark federal trial resulting from his suit.

As befits a court proceeding stemming from a deeply held conviction, Mr. Bloomberg will find himself confronting, in the defendant, a rather stubborn man of equally firm belief. His name is Jay Wallace, and he is an irascible outdoorsman who owns a sporting goods store in the Atlanta suburb of Smyrna, Ga. With his wife, Cecilia, Mr. Wallace, 51, arrived in New York City earlier this week in advance of the trial, which is to begin on Tuesday.

“I believe that I care more about firearms getting into criminals’ hands than the mayor of New York City does,” Mr. Wallace said on Wednesday at a pretrial conference at the Brooklyn federal courthouse, where the trial will be held. “I’m in the business. I know how my business is run.”

The trial can be read in many ways: as gun victim versus gun seller, as city versus country, as red state versus blue state, and, none the least, as a version of David v. Goliath, with Mr. Wallace in the self-appointed slingshot role.

[wastedyears]

She was murdered?

Bloomberg’s just cutting loose ends.

[from occupied ga]

looking in my crystal ball I see 95% of American gun owners will go baaa, and turn them in. 4% will hide them (pretty much the same as turning them in since if they're cached you don't have access to them) and 1% will take the true meaning of the second amendment to heart. Of this 1% some will (or already do) have lists of names and addresses of anti-gun ring leaders who just might find that there are indeed consequences in trying to enslave people. 99.9% of police will "just follow orders" and enforce anti-gun laws with the same vigor that they enforce speeding laws. 0.1% will get blue flu. Some of them will be killed either by home made claymores designed to rake the front of people's homes while the police prepare for entry, by ambush, by ieds in their favorite speed trap locations, etc. It won't be pretty.

Of course if my crystal ball were more accurate it would give me better stock market information :-)

[wastedyears]

I bet you’ve got all the information you need.