8/01/2012

New piece in the Wall Street Journal: What Mayor Bloomberg Doesn't Know About Police and Guns


My newest piece in the Wall Street Journal starts this way: 
In the wake of the recent mass shooting in Colorado, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called on police to join him in fighting for more gun control: "I don't understand why the police officers across this country don't stand up collectively and say we're going to go on strike." It is illegal for police to go on strike, and Mr. Bloomberg later backed off his statement. But the mayor is just as far off the mark in his assumption that police agree with him on gun control.  
Take the annual survey by the National Association of Chiefs of Police of more than 20,000 chiefs of police and sheriffs. In 2010 it found that 95% believed "any law-abiding citizen [should] be able to purchase a firearm for sport or self-defense." Seventy-seven percent believed that concealed-handgun permits issued in one state should be honored by other states "in the way that drivers' licenses are recognized through the country"—and that making citizens' permits portable would "facilitate the violent crime-fighting potential of the professional law enforcement community." . . .
Please leave comments at the WSJ website available here

Some of the information referenced in my piece.
2010 Survey by the National Association of Chiefs of Police
Survey from Police Magazine and San Diego Police Officers Association.
Other related info: Survey of Police officers in Lehigh and Northampton Counties in Pennsylvania.
Bloomberg quote high capacity magazines.
Bloomberg attack on the NRA

The Huffington Post has this collection of comments by and about Bloomberg's comments on guns.  Needless to say it is very pro-gun control, but, after all, it is the Huffington Post.
Nearly two weeks after the mass shooting in Aurora, Colo., New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the nation's outspoken gun control advocates, is unimpressed with the political fallout.The mayor has been on a media blitz following the massacre . . . .
Not one accustomed to being dismissed or ignored, Bloomberg lashed back in a phone interview with The Huffington Post on Wednesday."I don't think there's anybody, any rational person, that seriously could argue that what we have and the way we enforce it prohibits carnage," he said. ". . . So the argument that we can do with existing laws and stop this is just preposterous. It isn't worth having a discussion about." . . .
I guess that I agree that we should just keep the existing laws.

Labels: , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home