A lot of gun owners seem to be reacting to this like some kind of gotcha against Bloomberg. I think it’s correct and proper for the NYPD to do this:
But on Wednesday Mayor Bloomberg’s position on gun control looked shakier as it was revealed that his police department, the NYPD, had sold 28,000lbs of spent bullet casings to a store which reloads them and sells them cheaply to customers.
I think that’s fine. We ought to be defending this practice, and not trying to use it as a club to beat Bloomberg over the head. It saves the NYPD money, helps keep the cases from being melted down and sold for scrap (at less economic value) and shooters get cheap, reloaded ammunition. I’ll give New York City and Bloomberg credit when they do something right.
Of course, I’ll leave it to your amusement that the Telegraph doesn’t know the difference between a bullet and a casing.
“John Feinblatt, the mayor’s chief policy adviser, said: “He believes that our purpose is to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, not keep guns or ammunition away from law-abiding citizens. ”
Oh really? Then they must think everyone is a criminal.
I agree. Enough already with all this character assassination and culture war crap. When Bloomberg does the right thing, he should be commended. When he does the wrong thing, he should be called out.
I don’t get your point at all. This is hypocrisy as the Left defines it, and they sure seem to think it’s an ultimate sin when they accuse us of it.
Didn’t the Obama administration decide against selling the spent military brass, preferring to melt it into scrap instead? ‘Cuz that amounts to a LOT more than NYPD would ever use and sell.
Of course, that would flood the market with millions of perfectly reloadable casings, leading to less-expensive-but-still-good-quality ammunition, produced domestically here in the U.S., and thus NOT subject to any global treaty.
@Harold: It absolutely is hypocrisy for Hizzoner-the-Mayor to do this, but I think Sebastian’s point is that we shouldn’t be calling him to the carpet when he does something right. The Left still thinks that “finding common ground” means “getting everything they want,” and we need to show them different without getting into a pissing match over every little thing. That just sinks us to their level. To steal a phrase from the organization-formerly-known-as-the-Brady-Campaign, “We’re better than this.”
I think is was some military units that started insisting the brass be destroyed by the buyer, but that was squashed fairly quickly. However I think the DoD has directed they do that for ammo cans and that’s still in effect.
As for Bloomberg, we shouldn’t complain about him doing the right thing—except I doubt he even knew this is going on—we should instead make that part of the point, that this is the only correct gun thing he is doing and by definition it’s hypocritical.
He’s doing enough barking mad things, latest is restricting formula availability in NYC hospitals for new mothers (a nurse has to sign it out for each feeding and give the mother a talking to…) that it should be ever easier to portray him as a tyrannical nutcase (and he’s like many historical ones, only with less power) and use that correct perception to cast aspersions on his gun control efforts.
I hope not. That would be even more senseless than destroying the spent cases. Ammo cans are extremely useful, and for way more than just carrying ammo.