Time to reconsider gun laws?

In the aftermath of the storm, some residents are coming to the realization that they alone are responsible for their own personal safety and are acting accordingly:

“… Ever since Sandy strafed the Queens peninsula and tore up the boardwalk, it’s become an often lawless place where cops are even scarcer than electrical power and food. Locals say they are arming themselves with guns, baseball bats, booby traps — even a bow and arrow — to defend against looters …

This is just common sense, something Mayor Bloomberg sorely lacks.  His solution was to shove his head further up his own butt and decline assistance from the National Guard because they carry guns:

“… “We don’t need it,” Mayor Bloomberg said on Wednesday during a press update on the city’s ongoing Hurricane Sandy cleanup. “The NYPD is the only people we want on the street with guns.” …”

It should be blindly obvious that Bloomberg’s approach is not working.

It is too soon to see if this will translate in legislative action to reform New York’s gun laws next session.

Bloomberg dumps money in CD-24

Politico reports that Mayor Bloomberg has spent $400,000 in CD-24 in an effort to unseat Congresswoman Anne Marie Buerkle.  Buerkle has been very outspoken in her criticism of Eric Holder over the Fast & Furious scandal.

Bloomberg dumping money in California

Mayor Bloomberg is really spreading it around:

“… On Tuesday, Bloomberg’s Independence USA committee spent $2,350,000 on a media buy to benefit Gloria Negrete McLeod, a Democratic State Senator in California who is trying to unseat the Democratic incumbent congressman, Joe Baca, whose positions on gun control the mayor has criticized …”

NRA rates Baca as B+ and McLeod as D.

Bloomberg dumping money in Florida

Da Mayor is spending $1.1 million attacking Florida Congressman Daniel Webster and supporting his challenger Val Demings.

Here is a video from last year when Bloomberg’s FixGunChecks billboard truck visited Orlando that features Demings.

NRA “One Vote” ad

Here is the second NRA television advert they are running in battleground states:

It’s better than the first one, but I’m not impressed with it either. Cut it down to ~45 sec. by removing some of Obama quotes at the beginning and the handgun ban part at the end along with changing the imagery of hunters to something along the lines of what Oleg Volk creates would make it more effective and appealing to a wider audience.

NYAGV political donations

The New Yorkers Against Gun Violence PAC made $250 campaign contributions to each of these candidates.  Vote against all of them:

Steck v. Whalen

In AD-109, Phil Steck is running a television ad attacking Jennifer Whalen for supporting, among other things, CCW.  While it is not unusual for candidates to bring up their opponents stand on guns and/or endorsements from NRA/NYSRPA, I cannot recall anyone trying to make that an issue in a paid political ad.  He’s not likely to get any $support out of NYAGV, Brady, etc. for doing it.

That explains it

I have not seen a single Obama/Biden yardsign anywhere and only two bumperstickers.  Being a heavily Democrat state I found that a bit odd.  This report at the Washington Examiner may explain the reason for their absence:

“A new survey of presidential campaign ads reveals that those from Mitt Romney and President Obama jazz Republicans, pushing GOP enthusiasm 42 percent higher than it was in 2008 for Sen. John McCain …”