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Mayor Bloomberg Take Care of Your Own Backyard Guns

National Rifle Association

FAIRFAX, Va. --(Ammoland.com)- While Congress investigates the involvement of federal law enforcement agents in the “Fast and Furious” Mexican gun trafficking scandal, Business Week reports that five current and three retired New York City police officers, along with a former New Jersey corrections officer and three other individuals, have been charged with trafficking M16s, handguns and shotguns – some with defaced serial numbers – as part of a $1 million scheme.

Covering the same story, the New York Times noted that “the arrests come at a difficult time” for the NYPD, because another several dozen of its officers are already accused or are likely to face charges of planting drugs, lying under oath, violating the civil rights of innocent victims, and fixing traffic tickets.

The slew of arrests also comes at a difficult time for the rest of the city. While the nation’s murder rate decreased five percent between 2009 and 2010, in New York City — where gun ownership is severely restricted – it increased 15 percent. Still moving in the wrong direction, thus far in 2011, the number of shooting victims in the city is slightly higher than during the same period last year.

And during a weeklong period earlier this month, the number of people shot there rose 154 percent over the 2010 tally.

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, whose hobbies include being the mayor of New York City and heading the anti-gun group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, claimed at the end of 2009 that New York was “the safest big city in America.” Three months later, however, it became known that the city had experienced a 20 percent increase in murders while murders were declining elsewhere in America. Improvising with the best of them, Bloomberg blamed the city’s sorry trend on budget cuts reducing the police department’s manpower. However, data reported by the FBI showed that compared to other cities of over one million population, New York had more police officers per capita than Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix Las Vegas, San Antonio, San Diego, and Dallas, and about the same number as Chicago and Philadelphia.

All of those cities, save Chicago, have much less restrictive firearm laws than New York, of course. And five of the eight are in states that have “shall issue” Right-to-Carry permit laws. Lest permit holders who live in states other than New York become eligible to carry in the Empire State and its Big Apple, Bloomberg opposes H.R. 822, Rep. Cliff Stearns’ National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act. Bloomberg, who wants Congress to prohibit private sales of firearms in states where the legislatures steadfastly refuse to do so, says “When it comes to public safety, Congress has no business telling states, cities and police how to do their jobs.”

Obviously, he thinks that’s a job best left to him.

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Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military. Visit: www.nra.org

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CRKBA TO To Bloomberg ‘Explain This One’ NYPD Cops Busted For Gun Smuggling

CCRKBA.org

BELLEVUE, WA – -(Ammoland.com)- While Michael Bloomberg has been running around blaming gun laws in other states for his city’s crime problems, eight New York City police officers were allegedly involved in a gun smuggling operation “right under his nose,” the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Reuters reported that eight officers have been charged in connection with the case. All were working in Brooklyn, and according to the District Attorney’s office, they “exploited their experience and credentials to assist in a variety of schemes involving the illegal interstate transportation…” of guns, cigarettes, counterfeit goods and slot machines, the news agency said.

“If I were a member of Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “I’d say it was time for Bloomberg to mind his own business. While he was busily suing legitimate gun dealers all over the country and going on television to brag about it, he should have been paying closer attention to what was happening in his own back yard. After all, it was his city employees that have been charged in this illegal gun trafficking scheme.”

Gottlieb said Tuesday’s revelation clearly underscores what is wrong with Mayor Bloomberg’s relentless campaign to “erode gun rights through the demagoguery of public office.”

“Bloomberg’s fiasco is steeped in irony,” Gottlieb continued, “because this New York gun trafficking operation was happening right under the mayor’s nose, and he didn’t even know about it. He was paying too much attention to telling everyone else what was wrong with their gun laws, when he couldn’t even keep his own cops from breaking the gun laws he thinks should be used as a model all over the country

“It may be time for Bloomberg to stop looking everywhere else for gun trafficking activity and focus his attention closer to home,” he observed. “It’s pretty hard to accuse citizens in other states of feeding New York’s illegal gun trade when some of Bloomberg’s own cops appear to be up to their badges in it.”

With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911, on the Internet at www.ccrkba.org or by email to InformationRequest@ccrkba.org.

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