Dear Mayor Bloomberg:
Recent news accounts have once again revealed an ugly truth about New York City: Through the adoption and enforcement of Draconian firearms regulations, the Big Apple is rotten to its core for treating a fundamental, constitutionally-protected civil right as a felony . . .
These laws have recently entrapped a Marine Corps veteran, a female medical student, and the co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots organization. Their crime – at least in your jurisdiction – is that they traveled with firearms that are perfectly legal to possess anywhere else in the United States.
Mayor Bloomberg, when you created Mayors Against Illegal Guns, you made it clear that New York style gun laws should apply across the nation. You also claimed your intent was not to infringe on Second Amendment rights, and that your proposals were “moderate.”
Laws that penalize American citizens for exercising a civil right are hardly moderate. They reduce your credibility as a public servant and reinforce your image as a demagogue reigning over a gulag where the Constitution does not apply, and citizens who cross the Hudson River become political prisoners for exercising their rights.
Such nonsense provides the foundation for our latest book Shooting Blanks – Facts Don’t Matter to the Gun Ban Crowd . Let’s look at the people your city’s gun laws have entrapped.
• Marine Corps veteran Ryan Jerome is an Indiana resident with a permit to carry in that state. He had no criminal history until he tried to do the right thing by asking a security officer at the Empire State Building where he could check his firearm. He was arrested, jailed for 48 hours, and now faces a possible felony charge and up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
It may shock you, Mr. Mayor, but millions of average citizens regularly carry firearms for their personal protection. This includes veterans like Mr. Jerome, whose service in the Marine Corps protected your right to rant about private firearms ownership as if it were a plague. The only disease we see is social prejudice against gun owners, and you have all the symptoms.
• Meredith Graves of Tennessee traveled to New York for a job interview. Licensed to carry in her home state, she was with her husband when they stopped at the 9/11 memorial to pay their respects. When she saw a sign that indicated firearms were not allowed, she asked a security guard where she might check her pistol, carried for her personal protection. She was arrested, and now faces the same disgrace as Mr. Jerome, simply because, like him, she attempted to do the right thing as an honest citizen.
Outside of New York City, women can legally arm themselves against rapists, robbers, stalkers and murderers, taking responsibility for their own safety. They know the police cannot always protect them. Because of her arrest, Ms. Graves’ promising career may be ruined.
• Tea Party Patriots Chairman Mark Meckler of California was arrested – as have been countless other law-abiding citizens – at the airport after declaring, as required by federal law, that he had a firearm in his luggage. He legally owns that firearm in his home state and has it for his personal safety.
Recently, New York Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr. (D-Queens) was quoted by the New York Post observing, “Clearly, the laws are too strict here.” He also admitted that by prosecuting people such as Meredith Graves, the city is “shooting our ownefforts in the foot and giving the rest of the country ammunition.”
Mr. Mayor, when your gun laws are so crazy that even a member of the city council is compelled to admit it, you’re in trouble. When you perpetuate such laws and pretend they are sensible, you’re in denial. When you defend laws that persecute honest citizens; laws that epitomize the term “infringement” and clearly violate the Constitution, you’re in the Twilight Zone.
New York is not a city-state, but part of the United States. The Constitution applies there as it does in the rest of the nation, from Fairbanks to Fort Lauderdale. It is time for you to admit that.
Alan Gottlieb and Dave Workman
Alan Gottlieb is founder of the Second Amendment Foundation. Dave Workman is senior editor of TheGunMag.com.
Nice letter but you can bet it will go straight into the round file. The only opinion that’s going to move Bloomburg to change the laws is the one written by a judge from the Federal Appellate Court.
It’s an open letter. Whether Bloomberg reads it or not is beside the point.
Boycott the city. One thing they understand is loss of revenue.
I have to say that my desire to visit New York City has be greatly diminished in the past month or so.
I have lived in NYC my whole life, slightly more than a quarter century now, and I wish this were even possible. One thing living here teaches you is that you are outnumbered by people who disagree with you at all times. If anyone here was thinking about visiting this crud town, do yourself a solid and pick someplace cheaper where folks are actually decent to one another.
I used to travel to NYC frequently on business. I haven’t had to go for many years, and quite frankly I would be happy if I never go there again.
Good letter. I would rename this post without the word “illegal”. The mayors are against guns and it is they who want to make them illegal. I’m from NY many years ago, and I’m really glad that I left. Other than the deli’s and great food, it has nothing to offer but grief.
Good piece of writing.
If only the rotten apple was a city state! My taxes wouldn’t fund such a beast. The rest of New York state might get some more gun rights, too.
I often wish I had a bulldozer big enough to push nyc into the ocean
As much as I love the Big Apple (I was born there), Chi-town, and LA, I have been forced to do my sightseeing in second and third tier cities such as Richmond, Portland OR, Detroit, and Pittsburgh, because they don’t discriminate against law-abiding citizens.
You know, calling any of those cities second or third tier is a bit, ummmm, condescending.
As a Portlander, I have to agree.
Sarcasm detector broken? BTW I have lived in all of those cities.
I went to NYC in 1964 to the World’s Fair. The Fair was OK, else not so much. People enjoy living there?
I actually am ignorant the other way. My understanding is that the Sullivan Law bans hand guns by all civilians in all of the city?
Not technically. It’s a “may issue” permit law that makes it so difficult to legally obtain and carry a handgun that it has that effect for the vast majority of people.
But it’s not officially a handgun ban, no.
I assume the reciprocal rights from all other states are zilch in NYC? Even from New York State?
From what I hear, yeah. NYC really does seem to go out of its way to make sure that the law abiding citizen can’t be armed.
That’s why HR 822 freaks them out so much. All of a sudden they’d lose control over anyone from a part of the country that respected the Second Amendment.
Correct. Some counties in NYS are all but shall-issue, but NYC happily ignores NYS CCWs.
The tri state area is a minefield for the law abiding CCW holder, but it can be navigated.
I’ve translated it into New Yorker for you:
Dear Bloomy: F*ck you.
+1
Mayor Bloomberg is the BIGGEST POS around!! From his rabid anti-gun agenda to his support of the ground zero mosque this man makes me doubt the saying, “the only thing worse than a politician is a child molester!!”, because this guy is easily as despicable as a pedophile!!
Funny how you’re supportive of the Second Amendment and disdainful of the First. Why can’t people build a house of worship wherever the want (assuming they can buy the land, etc.)?
I agree with NCG. All Bill of Rights liberties are equally valid and important, otherwise all are meaningless.
Intent matters. In this particular situation it is disrespectful in the extreme, and is not being done so that individuals in the area may have convenient access to a house of worship. It is being done to plant a flag on the grave of 2,977 innocent people.
Bingo. They definitely do have the right to say they want to build a mosque there, and we have the right to tell them to go f_ck themselves.
Those folks were not entrapped. That part is bullshit.
Awhile back we considered moving our offices to NYC. While this would have been beneficial to us, one big reason we decided to stay in PA, the ability to legally protect ourselves via concealed carry. So we’ll keep our existing jobs as well as our new hires here, where legal gun owners rights are respected.
I would be interested to know the results of a survey of voting Americans. If they were asked, yes or no, are a politician’s 2nd Amendment views important enough to determine wether or not you would vote for them? I have a feeling that the answer would be somewhere in the quoted “3%”. It’s sad, but that’s how these assholes keep getting elected. That’s why in any SHTF scenario I won’t be protecting anyone that chose to give up their rights until it was too late.
This may be the gun grabbers master plan. Since gun control laws does nothing to catch real criminals, the draconian laws will turn law abiding citizens into criminals and put them in jail.
As a tourist who enjoys visiting the US as and when finances allows, I would like to see NYC, but not until the King of Bloombergia has been deposed. I wont bother his ‘honour’ with a letter, I will direct mine to the NY Chamber of Commerce.
Can we start a fund to get this letter reprinted as a full page ad in the New York Times?
We have an evil gun and violence culture that must change, this is not the wild west. We need to care about all neighbors, and people close to us and strangers too. Mental heatlh must become the paramount health issue to address. We must have serious background checks, including these stupid gun shows. I understand the Constitution, and again it’s a living document that needs updating, this is not the 18th century, and all developed countries are way ahead of the US in human rights, and caring, gun control, healthcare, etc. Sure you can be a hunter, people have a right, but it’s pathetic to hear right wing GOP idiots argue that if we have any gun control, where will it end? Gun control can have a line drawn where reasonable, loving, people can come to consensus, and agreement that the status quo is unacceptable. Assault weapons are for war and mass killing, not needed for target practice, etc. A lot of people are killed by people they know, and often their own gun. The false fear has resulted in about 300 million guns in the US, why? Lastly, the phony argument: guns don’t kill people, people kill people, is so absurd. The fact is you can’t take out the “cause and effect” element, the gun. People know they have a gun available, and it’s quick to resolve a dispute without any thought, any sharing of compromise, alternative scenarios to discuss to resolve an issue. People with guns kill people; this is so much more serious than sticks, stones, knives, etc. We need civility, now!
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