Running scared

Mayor Bloomberg sees the writing on the wall and is backing down on the repressive gun laws in New York City:



The Bloomberg administration announced on Friday that it was moving to simplify the process for New Yorkers to obtain gun permits, thus speeding up a set of byzantine licensing requirements that gun-rights advocates have long criticized as among the most restrictive in the country.


Administration officials said that the move was forged by a City Hall focused on efficiency and that it would allow for better investigation of applicants who might not qualify for a gun while more swiftly satisfying those fit to have them.


But the timing of the decision was curious to some, as it follows a 2008 Supreme Court ruling that struck down parts of the gun-control law in the District of Columbia and subsequent challenges to gun laws in other places.


“If I were working for the mayor in New York, in the legal department particularly, I’d be saying: ‘Are we sure we can defend these laws? Are there things to do, ahead of time, that will make it easier for us to defend them?’ ” said Paul Helmke, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “I would be surprised if that were not the thinking.”


The announcement was an unexpected turn for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has made national headlines with his efforts to take guns out of criminals’ hands and stem their trafficking, like using private investigators to pose as gun buyers in sting operations and suing gun dealers in several states.


My guess is they know they are the top of the list and in the cross-hairs for the next lawsuit and didn’t want to be in that position.


My advice to Bloomberg is–if you run you will only die tired.


(H/T to Alan Gottlieb @ SAF who told me about it this morning)

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One thought on “Running scared

  1. Yeah, careful with that antique law, Yellowstream Media. Next year marks the 100th anniversary of a xenophobic disarmament edict rammed down New Yorkers’ throats by a syphilitic crime boss, who suffered paranoid delusions as a symptom of his condition. Within a year Big Tim was adjudicated mentally ill and locked away in a sanitarium.

    I can’t think of a more appropriate archetype for the thoroughly worthless and paranoid disarmament philosophy that blackened the 20th century.

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