Mark Glaze, who just resigned as executive director of Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), now says that the gun control restrictions MAIG supports are “a mismatch,” where crimes committed by mass murderers are concerned. “It is a messaging problem” for gun control supporters “when a mass shooting happens and nothing that we have to offer would have stopped that mass shooting,” Glaze told the Wall St. Journal.
Eighteen months ago, however, Glaze was singing a different tune. “The single biggest problem that the [Obama] administration can solve is making sure every (firearms) buyer gets a background check,” he said. Exaggerating the numbers even more than President Obama did a few months later, Glaze claimed at the time, “Nearly 50% of buyers never get [a background check], and that is the dominant problem in gun policy in this country.”
Glaze may have since had an epiphany of sorts, but the same cannot be said for MAIG and Bloomberg’s other anti-gun group, Moms Demand Action. Now billing themselves as Everytown for Gun Safety, the two groups claim, “The single most important thing we can do to reduce gun violence is to require a criminal background check for every gun sale.”
Several government reports, however, provide additional “messaging problems” with these assertions. First, the Bureau of Justice Statistics has reported (see p. 13) that most criminals imprisoned for gun crimes obtain their guns from theft, the black market and acquaintances. None of these methods will be stopped or hindered by the requirement of additional background checks. Second, the BATFE has reported (see p. 18) that nearly half of illegally trafficked guns originate with straw purchasers–people who already defeat the existing background check requirement by buying guns for criminals who cannot pass checks. And third, the FBI has reported (see p. 1) that more than 200,000 guns are stolen annually (obviously without any background checks).
If facts matter, Bloomberg and fellow gun control advocate Hillary Clinton will never convince Congress to impose “universal” checks. However, Bloomberg has been trying to get other gun control restrictions imposed as well. MAIG’s Blueprint for Federal Action, provided to the Obama administration in 2009, called for prohibiting the importation of firearms that are “non-sporting.” Never mind that the Supreme Court specifically held that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms for defensive purposes. The “Blueprint” also advocated requiring firearm dealers to notify the BATFE when a person buys two or more AR-15s or comparable long guns within a five day period. This creates a federal registry of these firearms and their owners. Furthermore, MAIG supported legislation to create a new class of federally prohibited person, based on inclusion in a secret government list.
The following year, MAIG expressed support for requiring purchase permits for all handguns sales, giving law enforcement authorities discretion over the issuance of carry permits, and allowing local jurisdictions to impose gun control laws more restrictive than state law.
Today, Everytown also implicitly supports legislation to require gun owners to store guns in a manner dictated by the government and to require new guns to possess “smart” gun technology. It also tries to convince people that having guns within their homes makes them bad parents. Situations in which children accidentally kill themselves with their parents’ guns “happen all the time,” a new Everytown video falsely claims.
Clearly, what Bloomberg and his proxies are counting on is that make-believe videos, slogans, and “accessible” anti-gun group names like “Moms” and “Everytown” are all that it will take to convince the American people to go along with gun control.
What they likely didn’t count on is the chief manager of their anti-gun efforts throwing in the towel and coming clean with the American people.
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