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United States citizen groups demand federal prosecution of New York's Bloomberg, notes American gun law expert
Washington, DC 20036 January 21 2007
Gun rights expert John M. Snyder released the following column today:
Over two dozen national and regional groups of American citizens over the weekend
called for a federal investigation of Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City.
In a letter to Michael J. Sullivan, Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the 26 organizations, through the auspices of the Liberty Coalition in Washington, D.C., called upon BATFE “to immediately investigate and prosecute New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his associates for conspiring to violate the federal Gun Control Act of 1968 as amended by the Brady Act of 1995.”
For some time now, the Manhattan gun grabber has been stumping the country campaigning for laws and regulations to undermine if not downright eliminate the individual Second Amendment civil right of tens of millions of law-abiding American citizens to keep and bear arms.
It’s about time he got his comeuppance. In reality, Bloomberg is working against the right to self-defense of law-abiding American citizens, of the very right to life itself. Perhaps this citizen letter to the U.S. Justice Department’s BATFE is a good first step in giving Bloomberg a dose of his own medicine.
“It is well known,” reads the letter, “that Mayor Bloomberg has organized a multi-state vigilante-style campaign against federal gun dealers. Bloomberg’s gambit is simple – without any federal or state law enforcement authorization, he sends people to federal firearms dealers to break federal law by providing false information on the federal ATF Form 4473 firearm transfer form, and then purchasing guns for persons prohibited by law from taking possession of guns (a so called ‘straw sale’). Bloomberg then files a civil lawsuit against the dealer in a New York court while using a covertly made video tape of the transaction to blackmail the dealer into ‘settling’ on terms where the City of New York’s ‘Special Master’ will supplant ATF supervision of the dealer and peruse Americans’ confidential federal gun transfer records at will.”
According to the letter, “Congress’ charter to the ATF to regulate federal gun dealers and interstate gun sales did not come with a command for the agency to step aside when a wealthy New York City mayor wants to break federal criminal statutes and impose New York City style gun control across the nation as a publicity stunt. Moreover, America’s Second Amendment rights are at risk because the ATF has not done its job to intervene in Bloomberg’s travesty of justice.”
The citizen groups tell Director Sullivan that “the ball is in your court. The ATF needs to take action to show that no one is above the law, not even the Mayor of New York.”
National groups signing the letter are American Policy Center, Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights, Citizen Outreach Project, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Doctors for Open Government, Firearm Owners Against Crime, Gun Owners of America, KeepAndBearArms.com, Liberty Coalition.net, OpenCarry.org, Second Amendment Foundation, and Second Amendment Sisters.
Regional groups include Allegheny County Sportsmen’s League, Clarion Gun Owners, Lehigh Valley Firearms Coalition, and Pennsylvania Rifle and Pistol Association, all from the Keystone State, FairfaxCountyPrivacyCouncil.org, and Virginia Citizens Defense League, both of the Old Dominion, Grass Roots North Carolina, GeorgiaCarry.org, I Carry Gun Owners Association (www.icarry.org) of Illinois, Kentucky Coalition to Carry Concealed, Ohioans for Concealed Carry (OhioCCW.org), SecondAmendmentClub.org of Land O Lakes FL, Texas Citizens Defense League and West Virginia Citizens Defense League.
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John M. Snyder ([email protected])
Manager
Telum Associates, LLC
PO Box 2844
Arlington, VA 22202
Phone : 202-326-5259