Mayoral hypocrisy

The rabidly anti-gun mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, recently held an "anti-gun" summit attended by mayors from across the country. The meeting was ostensibly about decreasing gun crimes by felons, but the real purpose soon became clear - Bloomberg wants Federal, state and local governments to put further restrictions on law-abiding gun owners, such as limiting them to one gun purchase a month, banning the concealed carry of handguns by private citizens and forcing people to register their firearms, which historically has always preceded confiscation. How inconveniencing people and depriving them of their Constitutional rights will stop criminals and thugs from obtaining weapons is unclear, since they manage to obtain them even in countries that have banned firearms completely, but I digress.

It seems that one of the mayors that attended this pow-wow, Jackson, Mississippi mayor Frank Melton, pleaded guilty today to three misdemeanor firearms charges, one reduced from a felony, for carrying a firearm into places off limits under Mississippi law, including a church, a park and a university campus. The hypocrisy of this man boggles the mind. He travels to New York to cook up new ways to deprive his constituents of a means to defend themselves from criminals, and then gets popped for not following the laws already on the books. Remember, the powers that be want the peasants disarmed, but not themselves. Royalty doesn't have to follow the rules.

Speaking of Ol' Bloomie, seems that he might be in some hot water of his own. The mayor apparently sent some private investigators to other states to attempt to buy firearms, in an quest to find gun dealers violating the Federal rules against "straw man" purchases, or knowingly buying a firearm for someone who is not eligible to own one. That's fine and all, everyone, including myself, wants to see the few bad gun dealers shut down, the only problem is Bloomberg had neither the authority nor the jurisdiction to conduct these "stings". The irony is that not only did the P.I.s jeopardize several ongoing ATF investigations by performing their rogue "sting", they may actually be indicted themselves for breaking the very law they were trying to test. If one makes a straw purchase, then they are guilty of a crime, even if they had "good intentions". Not only is the Justice Department looking to see if crimes were committed, New York City and Bloomberg have been sued by several of the gun dealers in question, since Big Mouth Bloomie went all major press conference, proudly showing video and naming the dealers involved in the sting. Remember, this was not an official investigation. The P.I.'s could say or do anything they wanted, lie, forge documents, to obtain the firearms. For all the dealers knew the people had every right to buy a firearm, if they followed all of the Federal and state procedures and the buyer came back clean. That is the definition of a setup. The dealers in question had not been charged with a crime, but Bloomie slimed them in public anyway. This is not the right way to do things, according to Mayor Bloomberg's own police commissioner, Ray Kelly, who wrote to the Justice Department in regards to another case, to ask them to not release the exact data that Bloomberg was spouting all over the TV, for fear of jeopardizing investigations and putting police officers' lives in danger. But what does Bloomberg care? He got his face time, and made his point, however incorrectly.

What to take away from all of this? As usual, the peasants get screwed, and the bigwigs get their felony charges reduced and get to skate despite ordering people to violate Federal law. Stay tuned for further developments, as I don't think the ATF was happy at all with Bloomberg, and they aren't a group to piss off, as the Branch Davidians found out.

As for Melton, one can only hope that the citizens of Jackson vote this moron out in the next election in favor of someone who will follow the laws that he helps to make.