MAIG Losing Members

Just got back from the biannual teeth scraping and cleaning ritual, which always comes with the a heaping helping of the story about how if I don’t floss more, the skies will darken and toads will rain down on the land. But other than that I didn’t have any issues that required going back and facing the drill. Any checkup that ends with “see you in six months” is a good check-up, no matter what they say about how my gingiva is doing.

So it looks like MAIG, having abandoned any pretext of not being anything other than a gun control advocacy group is apparently losing members. I’ve always been pretty unsure the best strategy for getting MAIG mayors. The purpose of preemption was to help keep uniform laws, but a secondary effect is to keep us from having to constantly do battle at the local level. Bloomberg’s group practically begs for us to engage there again to get rid of some of these MAIG mayors, but I’m not convinced it’s a great use of limited resources. I think a whack-a-mole strategy is most sound when it comes to MAIG mayors: ruthlessly crush them any time they seek higher office in state capitals or Washington, where they can start to affect gun policy. Not all mayors have higher political ambitions, but many do. I think if we make MAIG membership toxic to those who do have those ambitions it might be enough to make many mayors reconsider joining. Ideally I’d love MAIG to become a coalition of big city mayors, and mayors from states where they’ve already largely succeeded in eradicating the gun culture.

UPDATE: I tend to think 50 mayors leaving isn’t a huge blow to MAIG, but the meme is getting out there, for sure. This isn’t good for MAIG. They will have to counter this meme, and that’s good for us. Make them work for it.

UPDATE: This might be an attempt to fight the meme.

UPDATE: Mayors For a Name Change? Stranger things have happened. It’s not like we haven’t seen name changes in this issue before, and I approve of their proposed name. It’s more honest.