Rogues’ Gallery

Oh, dear. A high profile member of America’s most prominent gun control empire has been in the news lately, and for all the wrong reasons.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, one of the eleven national co-chairs of Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), has been indicted on federal bribery, campaign finance and conspiracy crimes, the latest incident involving a MAIG-associated civic leader.

The September 26 announcement from federal officials alleges that for nearly a decade, Adams “used his prominent positions in New York City government to obtain illegal campaign contributions and luxury travel,” and “solicited and accepted these benefits from foreign nationals, businessmen, and others.” Adams, it is claimed, “sought and accepted” illegal campaign contributions, which were then used for obtaining matching contributions from a NYC matching-funds program. According to the press release, this resulted in his “2021 mayoral campaign receiv[ing] more than $10,000,000 in public funds.” Adams alleged accepted free or heavily discounted travel, accommodation, meals and entertainment, which he did not disclose in annual financial disclosures he was required to file as a New York City employee. Instead, it is alleged that he “created and instructed others to create fake paper trails, falsely suggesting that he had paid, or planned to pay, for travel benefits that were actually free,” and “deleted messages with others involved in his misconduct, including, in one instance, assuring a co-conspirator in writing that he ‘always’ deleted her messages.” One of the more disturbing allegations regards public safety – that the mayor pressured the “New York City Fire Department to facilitate the opening” of a foreign government’s 36-story Manhattan skyscraper “that had not passed a fire inspection.”

Federal prosecutors have disclosed that the Adams investigation remains open and additional charges are possible (the press release urges anyone with information related to bribery, fraud, or any other illegal conduct by Adams or any other NYC employees to contact the city’s Department of Investigation). Adams’s indictment followed on the heels of news that NYC’s top law enforcement officer, Police Commissioner Edward A. Caban, had resigned his position after FBI officials seized his phone as part of a corruption probe.

To be absolutely clear, a criminal charge is only an allegation that a defendant has committed a violation of the criminal law and is not evidence of guilt; all defendants are presumed innocent until convicted in a court of law.

The group that Adams co-chairs, MAIG, was created by then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2006 as a means of furthering his radical gun control agenda at the local and state government level, and Bloomberg remains the group’s “founding chair” and source of funding.

While the name suggests an exclusive focus on illegally possessed or trafficked firearms, the “gun safety reforms” MAIG members support are textbook Bloomberg gun control: “background checks on all gun sales, domestic violence firearm relinquishment, and Red Flag laws,” opposing “harmful laws, like Stand Your Ground, permitless carry, guns in schools, and state preemption,” and a pledge to use “the courts to challenge “dangerous gun lobby sponsored laws … and fight in court to defend local gun safety ordinances against preemption and Second Amendment challenges.” MAIG members are asked to sign a “Statement of Principles,” a formal commitment to advance gun control laws at every legislative level, use the courts and government purchasing powers, hold “law enforcement accountable,” and to “defend our democracy from armed intimidation.”

Just seven years after it was founded, MAIG was brought under the umbrella of billionaire Bloomberg’s new “Everytown” gun control entity. The New York Post’s editorial board ran an exposé at the time that hinted at why such lower visibility for MAIG was prudent. The piece opened with, “They call themselves Mayors Against Illegal Guns. But apparently not all of them are against all illegal activity,” and proceeded to list the MAIG members who were, at that time, facing a bewildering array of serious criminal charges – felony corruption, assault, attempted sex crimes with a child, and others.

The New York Post’s most spectacular example, arguably, involved a MAIG mayor who in 2013 reportedly used “three handguns to illegally detain a man he had a crush on,” “threatened to kill himself and fired a gun” inside the home. A news report states that the mayor was charged with reckless endangerment, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, official oppression and furnishing liquor to a minor, and “[i]n all but the official oppression charge, the jury found a firearm had been used in the commission of the crime and that it was used in such a way that threatened the victim.”

One wonders whether the official would have called for his own prosecution for the gun-related crimes. After all, the same official had previously signed an open letter from MAIG, opposing federal attempts to strip cities and states of the authority to pass gun control laws because “[d]oing so would threaten the safety of our citizens by putting loaded guns in the hands of people who are too dangerous to qualify for a local permit.”

Indeed, the frequency with which these opponents of “illegal guns” have been themselves charged with, pled guilty to, or were convicted of illegal behavior is something of a self-inflicted joke, with the NRA (here, here and here), the Second Amendment Foundation (“Mayors Gone Wild”), and others keeping tabs.

Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has been nowhere near loath to bang the drum for further restrictions on the freedom of law-abiding gun owners. In his capacity as a MAIG co-chair, he called on federal lawmakers to ban so-called “assault weapons,” repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, pass a federal “red flag” law, raise the age to purchase firearms to 21, and expand background checks to all gun sales. Speaking of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in NYSRPA v. Bruen, he pledged to “do everything in our power, using every legal resource available” to curtail the “appalling decision.”

As for his own, ongoing legal concerns, Adams has pled not guilty to the federal felony charges and the proceedings continue to unfold. Whatever happens, though, the credibility of Bloomberg’s MAIG group has taken another big hit.