Forcing a Response from Bloomberg’s Office

Looks like the Mayor’s office has felt the need to officially respond to our little finding from yesterday, which has spread around Al Gore’s Internets quite nicely today:

“With more than 600 mayors in cities across the county, there are always going to be changes to keep up with. We actually called every one of our 169 mayors’ offices in Pennsylvania this summer to confirm status. The staff in Freeland never returned our calls, so we relied on the government websites, which still list him as Mayor.”

So how many other towns “never returned our calls,” who’s mayors you still kept singing onto your gun control agenda, or to block pro-Second Amendment legislation in Congress?

Freeland Borough is a small town in Northeastern Pennsylvania, having only a few thousand inhabitants. It’s not atypical of Pennsylvania towns. Many of these local municipalities don’t have full time staff to return Mayor Bloomberg’s calls. Nor do they always keep their web sites up to date. The greater point here is that Bloomberg is using the names of his mayors without doing so much as asking each mayor whether or not they want to get behind specific initiatives.

In all likelihood, a great many MAIG mayors sign up thinking “Who could be for illegal guns?” and don’t bother to pay much attention to what Mayor Bloomberg is using their names for. That’s why it’s incumbent on gun owners who live in towns with MAIG mayors, to try to get their mayor to quit. In a lot of cases, all it takes is talking to them.

Compromise Happens

Referring again to the discussion thread previously, and over at Weer’d World, and Common Gunsense, in regards to compromise: I think it’s important to understand the nature of compromise to know why it can’t really work even if we could find some. This is a topic I’ve covered before, or at least I feel like I have, but it’s worth renewing the conversation, I think.

You have to start with the base assumption that neither side wants to give up anything. This is a true state. We’d obviously just like to get, say, suppressors deregulated, without having to give up anything. Our opponents, meanwhile, would love to pass, say, a ban on all private transfers of firearms, without having to give up anything. The art of compromise is figuring out what’s most important to you, and seeing if you can trade something you don’t care that much about for something you do. If what you don’t care so much about is something your opponent values highly, then a deal can be struck, especially if what they are giving up is something important to you. In that case a deal is quite likely. The problem is that doesn’t happen too often.

One of the rare cases of something that was at least somewhat close to a true, brokered compromise was HR 2640, where we agreed to funding to improve state reporting to NICS for mental health, in exchange for some important easing of the prohibited persons laws, especially as it applied to people adjudicated of mental illness. The Bradys, in my opinion, actually gave up more in that deal than we did, because what was really important to them at the time was being able to tout a legislative victory. But if Brady could have rammed that bill through without making any concessions, it surely would have.

Most of the time compromise happens through struggle rather than agreement. You start with what you really want, which may not have the votes to pass, and then agree to change it to something less than that to pick up votes. If you’re still looking at improvement once you get to a majority, you have something that can pass. This happens on both sides. HR822 today does not go as far as the effort in the Senate a few years ago. That’s because the Senate effort failed by a few votes, so you need to make changes to pick up the extra votes. On the other side, the Assault Weapons Ban never would have had a sunset provision in it if it wasn’t necessary for our opponents to concede that to pick up needed votes for passage.

So any collaborative effort of a democratic nature is going to tend to, by the nature of the beast, be a compromise. It won’t be something forged on blogs, or by discussion between the sides. It’ll happen through the political process of either trying to pass or defeat a piece of legislation. Both sides will struggle for their own interests, and through lobbyists, will do what they need to achieve a victory, and to scuttle the other side’s best laid plans. The Brady folks don’t want to compromise, and neither do we. That’s why we’ll never be marching, hand in hand to Congress, embracing us each giving up something.

“Lalalalalalalalalala! I can’t hear you!”

Tam opines on the topic of compromise, and how our gun control supporting proponents see it. It’s really struck me too. There are reasonable discussions that can be had in regards to the topic. I’ve argued previously on this blog that one can think of licensing regimes that would actually be less restrictive than we have now, but would successfully deal with some of their purported concerns in regards to criminal access, background checks, and the like.

But they’ve never seemed all that interested in give and take, only really the take, because guns are icky, and so are the people who own them. The only good gun owner, in their eyes, is one who agrees with their agenda of the eradication of the right. That’s why we have to be dedicated to their political destruction, and nothing less.

Bloomberg’s Fraud – Signing a Dead Man’s Name

Did you know that Freeland Borough, PA’s Mayor Tim Martin died from esophageal cancer on September 2, 2010? Yet, amazingly, Mike Bloomberg’s anti-gun coalition still claims him as a member on their website as of November 8, 2011.

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 letters to Congress, and one letter to the President sent by Michael Bloomberg’s office. Now, just how on earth is Bloomberg getting a dead man to sign his letters? And why are media outlets running advertisements that are clearly fraudulent?

In a miracle, Tim Martin’s name appears on this letter to the US Senate on December 10, 2010 – 3 months and 8 days after his death.

Magically, Mayor Martin signed this Washington Post advertisement on January 25, 2011 – 4 months and 23 days after he passed.

Amazingly, Bloomberg snagged Martin’s signature on this letter to the US Congress on May 11, 2011 – 8 months and 9 days after his last breath.

Bringing him back to life again, Bloomberg placed the Mayor’s John Hancock on this letter to the US Congress on July 6, 2011 – 10 months and 4 days after he died.

Two days later, Bloomberg used the dead man’s name in a letter to the President – 10 months and 6 days after he passed.

Not stopping there, Mayor Martin’s name turned up on this USA Today ad on October 20, 2011 – 1 year, 1 month, and 18 days after Martin was declared dead.

How are Bloomberg’s PA Mayors Holding Up?

Most of tonight’s elections in Pennsylvania are municipal races, and many of the county governments don’t do any form of electronic reporting for their election results. Regardless, this is my attempt to keep up with those races where we can find information online. I’ll update this post regularly as we add more races.

Keep checking in for updates to this post.

Good News for Gun Owners

  • Aliquippa Bloomberg Buddy Anthony Battalini lost his primary handily 2-1 earlier this year. So, clearly he’s out today. Aliquippa residents should let mayor-elect Dwan Walker to support their rights.
  • Reading‘s Tom McMahon who welcomed Bloomberg’s bus tour is stepping down and did not run for re-election.

Bad News for Freedom & Liberty

  • Parker City‘s Bloomberg-backed mayor William McCall was unchallenged today. He is a Republican who is standing against our rights.
  • Whitehall‘s Edward Hozza managed to win both the GOP & Democratic ballot earlier this year, so he didn’t have any competition today.
  • In Wilkes Barre, Tom Leighton who takes pride in his anti-gun credentials won re-election tonight. On the upside, his anti-freedom efforts are limited to MAIG activities since his failed campaign for a seat in the state legislature a couple of years ago.
  • As mayor of Farrell, Ollie McKeithan, was unchallenged and will serve another term.
  • Results in Montour County aren’t actually available right now, but since Bloomberg supporter Ester Cotner won her primary unchallenged on both sides with a whopping 13 votes – total cast – she will win again tonight in Washingtonville.
  • Easton‘s mayor Sal Panto handily won re-election to continue advancing his anti-gun agenda.

We’re Not Sure

  • In Freeland Borough, MAIG still lists a mayor who died more than a year ago on their website. In fact, they’ve been signing his name to ads & letters as recently as last month. More on this in a minute. In regards to the election, his wife was running and took the lead with 50% of the precincts reporting.

Holder Refuses to Apologize to Terry Family

Over at Real Clear Politics, they have a transcript and video of Holder’s testimony in this regard:

It is not fair, however, to assume that the mistakes that happened in Fast & Furious directly led to the death of Agent Terry.

Fast and Furious guns were found at the murder scene of the agent. How is it possible that Holder believe the operation can escape blame for this? The only thing that makes logical sense is that Holder is fatalistic about being able to stop the cartels from getting their hands on firearms, a position gun control advocates are often quick to criticize when such positions are espoused by gun rights advocates.

Holder is trying to have his cake and eat it too. If keepings guns out of the hands of criminals is an effective policy to protect law enforcement, and if Fast and Furious deliberately allowed weapons to be put into the hands of criminals, then he should admit responsibility and apologize to the family for the operation. If it is not effective at disarming cartels, then the gun control laws and regulations Holder is demanding won’t have any effect on the violence, will they?

Ultimately, like trying to put out a raging house fire with a garden hose, I would agree with Holder if his position is that disarming the cartels is a fool’s errand. But in that same analogy, Holder wants us to believe that throwing a bucket of gasoline onto the flame doesn’t make him responsible when those fighting the fire end up burned. We might ultimately agree on the fool’s errand, but I think it’s lamentable to take actions that clearly can only make the situation worse, rather than better, then try to evade responsibility for those actions.

Hat tip to Instapundit

More Testimony From Holder

He’s incredulous that the DOJ is being sued over the long gun reporting requirement. In response to Senator Feinstein:

I think that that regulation requirement is an extremely reasonable one. It has all of the features that you have described and I think significantly is totally consistent — it is exactly what we have been doing for years with regard to the sale of handguns. And the notion that somehow or other we are in litigation now, being sued try to do the very same thing that we have done with handguns for years with regard to weapons that are far more dangerous, is really beyond me.

I don’t understand how that can be opposed given the fact that this would provide ATF, other federal agencies with useful information in trying to stop the problem that has been the subject of so much discussion. Those that have been some of the harshest critics of ATF have voted against this very, very sensible regulation. The House tried – has voted to block it. And I guess over 270 members of — of the House voted against what I think as I said is a very reasonable regulation and one that is totally consistent, exactly consistent with what we’ve been doing with handguns for years. I think since the mid 80’s.

First, the real objection to this, for anyone who cares about the rule of law, is there’s just no power granted by Congress to implement this regulation. In fact, the Gun Control Act, as amended by the Firearms Owners Protection Act, specifically forbids the Attorney General from promulgating this kind of regulation. I wouldn’t care if the regulation was for handing lollipops to little children: we have laws in this country and the executive branch is bound to them. The Attorney General is not a dictator.

Secondly it seems ridiculous, when the ATF was unable to keep track of firearms that dealers were voluntarily reporting, how it’s going to help ATF to have many times the amount of data to process.

He’s in Trouble Now

Holder has been testifying before the Senate:

LEAHY: Well thank you very much and Attorney General Holder, would you please stand, raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony you’re about to give before this committee be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God.

HOLDER: I do.

We know he has trouble in this area.

Repeal the Second Amendment

Looks like at least one gun control group, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, is getting on board with this idea. I’m not all that surprised. They’ve consistently refused to acknowledge Heller was correct, in stark contrast to the Brady Campaign accepting the ruling, provided it means being limited to having a gun in the home.