New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg blames Virginia and several other southern state’s for the Big Apple’s gun crimes — so now he’s set his Mayors Against Illegal Guns’ sights on the Deep South for a Second Amendment crackdown.
“Despite all we do to keep our city safe, we’re increasingly at the mercy of weak national gun laws and weak gun laws in other states,” Mr. Bloomberg said, according to The New York Post. “We have been attacking this problem from every angle, but we cannot do it alone.”
He cited Virginia as about the worst, in terms of allowing guns to flow into New York.
In 2011, guns from Virginia were involved in 322 violent incidents, he said, The New York Post reported. He also said that guns from states other than New York were used to commit 90 percent of the city’s crimes in 2011 – and that’s up from 85 percent in 2009.
Mr. Bloomberg is using those statistics to push for national reform on right-to-carry laws. His chief of staff, John Feinblatt, said if states like Virginia only implemented common-sense provisions, then violent crime rates would fall.
“Take Virginia,” he said, at a press conference at City Hall. “That state requires no background checks for private sales and the legislature in that state even recently rolled back their state laws by stripping their one-gun-a-month purchase limit.”
Other states faulted by Mr. Feinblatt: South Carolina, for contributing 251 “crime guns” in 2011, he said. And Georgia, Alabama and Texas – all states that allow for online gun sales absent background checks.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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