Bloomberg and pals still desperately seeking relevance

When I started Armed and Safe, I hadn't really planned on an Illinois focus--I would actually prefer to talk more about advancing gun rights on the national level. Obviously, it hasn't really worked out that way, because draconian gun laws are pushed so relentlessly in this state that I feel kind of compelled to talk about it. Still, I can't really imagine it being very interesting to people who don't live in Illinois, and who don't plan to ever come here (and why would you?). That being the case, and despite my temptation to gloat over the hard-fought defeat of HB 758 yesterday, I'll take a break from Illinois, and talk about our favorite gazillionaire gun prohibitionist mayor.

Apparently, he and his water boys at Mayors Against Illegal Guns (conveniently leaving out that if it were up to them, all privately owned guns would be "illegal guns") are unhappy that citizen disarmament isn't a larger part of the platforms of the three presidential candidates, so they're trying to force the issue with an ad released at the beginning of this week.

A group of 300 mayors from across the nation have banded together to produce an advertisement aimed at forcing the three remaining presidential hopefuls — Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Republican Sen. John McCain — to tackle gun control.

For Obama and Clinton, the timing of the ad's release probably left something to be desired, as they battle for votes in the pro-gun stronghold of Pennsylvania, with both making rather outlandish bids to win over gun rights supporters (I see that Obama has at least managed to win the backing of a fake "pro-gun" group).

"This is the kind of thing that will make the candidates get very uncomfortable. Gun control is not an issue that any of these candidates wants to bring up right now. For the candidates, it's a lose-lose," said Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. "To have prominent mayors — including Bloomberg, who has been courted assiduously by all three presidential candidates — push them on an issue where they lose more voters than they gain is a nightmare."

I'm not much of one for TV, so I hadn't seen the ad until I found it on the mayors' website. The ad is focused on closing the mythical "gun show loophole"--that's apparently Bloomberg's pet issue these days (although perhaps that's just a convenient choice because it's the one "gun control" issue to which McCain has committed himself publicly).

Maybe now the presidential candidates will notice you, eh, Bloomy?

Speaking of Bloomberg, one of his victims, a gun dealer who seems to be cut from the same cloth as Ryan Horsley, could use some help.

I would say he's more than earned that help.