Mayor Bloomberg Exploits Tragedy--Targets NRA

A December 2, story in the New York Post detailed the rantings of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) as he took advantage of a grievous, heart-breaking tragedy and used it as an occasion to wrongly blast NRA.

Referring to the recent slaying of a New York City police officer (by a suspect accused of shooting another officer during a robbery attempt some 10 days earlier), Mayor Bloomberg lashed out at NRA, telling listeners to his weekly radio show that, "Fundamentally, if you want to solve the problem [of gun violence] it's up to Congress, and Congress keeps getting rolled by the NRA.  This is plain and simple, the NRA versus the lives of our children and our police officers."

In what amounts to a classic cop-out, Bloomberg prefers to point fingers and deflect blame, rather than address the city's criminal justice system (for which he is responsible and paid to enforce) and arrest and prosecute criminals so that repeat offenders can't continue their mayhem.

Commenting on Bloomberg's diatribe, NRA-ILA Director of Public Affairs, Andrew Arulanandam, said, "I think it's really despicable for the mayor to try and inject politics into this very sad and tragic event.  Our membership rolls are full of active and retired law-enforcement and military officers.  It is not appropriate to talk about politics at this time. At this point in time our thoughts and prayers are with the slain police officer's family."

If you would like to contact Mayor Bloomberg to let him know what you think about his comments, you can call his office at (212) 639-9675, fax him at (212) 788-2460, or e-mail him at http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html.