Tag: Bloomberg and His Posse

Michael Bloomberg Demonstrates the Racist Nature of Gun Control

History isn’t a topic researched thoroughly by enough Americans. This is unfortunate because history has so much to teach. Consider the modern gun control movement. Few proponents of gun control realize that their movement was founded on racist ideas. Gun control in the United States started as a way to prevent newly free blacks from acquiring arms. If you want a quick overview of this history the Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership put together a good documentary a few years back:

For those who prefer to read history Clayton Cramer put together a short, well-cited summary. The more things change the more they stay the same. Today the big player in American gun control is Michael Bloomberg. Considering his stated support for the New York Police Department’s stop and risk program, which heavily discriminated against black and Hispanic individuals, it’s not surprising to see racist motives in his push for gun control:

Bloomberg claimed that 95 percent of murders fall into a specific category: male, minority and between the ages of 15 and 25. Cities need to get guns out of this group’s hands and keep them alive, he said.

Statistics are a funny thing. If you massage numbers properly you can get whatever result you want. But if you look at the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ (FBI) Uniform Crime Report for 2013 you will see that the age range of 15 to 25 isn’t the majority. There were 12,253 murders reported in 2013 and a majority of the victims fell in the age bracket of 25 and above. Furthermore 5,537 victims were white, 6,261 were black, 308 were listed as other, and 147 were unknown. Nowhere could you get the 95 percent figure Bloomberg cites.

But it’s not surprising, considering his above mentioned history, that he’s specifically targeting young male minorities. History of the gun control movement, after all, arose because people wanted to disarm that particular segment of society. Even so it’s rare that you see a gun control proponent so openly state such a desire.

Minnesota Gun Owners Get Their Own Political Action Committee

Advocates of gun control have been trying to buy their way in politics for ages now. Seeing Michael Bloomberg’s actions in other state, including Virginia, to push for gun control the gun owners of Minnesota have decided to perform a political preemptive strike and start their own political action committee:

The Minnesota Gun Owners Political Action Committee will mobilize Minnesotans to support pro-Second Amendment candidates through grassroots efforts. The PAC also plans to endorse and financially support candidates in the primary & general elections in Minnesota’s 2014 elections for the legislature & statewide offices.

Why not? Politics is all about money. If you can’t entice politicians with money they’re going to go with somebody else. Part of the reason I find politics to be some hopeless is because I, unlike Bloomberg, am not a billionaire who can afford to buy politicians. Combined Minnesota gun owners may be able to outspend Bloomberg and preserve our current gun ownership privileges (I’m sorry, but I can’t refer to them as rights since we need the state’s permission to own firearms before we can legally do so).

The Beauty of Radical Rebellion

Going back through my blog will show the slow transition I have made over the years from statist libertarianism to anarchism without adjectives. Between those two points exists a number of philosophical changes. From constitutional libertarianism I transitions to anarcho-capitalism and from there I transitioned to market anarchism. Now I don’t really want adjectives. I fully admit that I don’t know what is best for everybody but I want people to free to pursue their desires. Spontaneous order will decide what works and what doesn’t.

This transition has lead to another change. Previously I would oppose rebellious groups based on their end goals. I had very little respect for anarcho-communists because I opposed communism. The Industrial Workers of the World, a radical anarcho-syndicalist union, was and evil organization in my eyes because it supported property destruction and sabotage. Now my point of view is quite a bit different. The mere act of radical rebellion is beautiful to me. While I don’t agree with many groups I find myself caring less about a group’s endgame and more about the simple fact that they’re radicals in an a state of rebellion. In other words I don’t really care what color your flag is so long as it has some black on it.

An example of this is the street artists Banksy. Banksy is a famous street artist who is currently hanging out in New York City. Mayor Bloomberg is pretty upset about this fact and has promised to bring the full psychopathic force against Banksy. What makes Banksy’s situation even more interesting is that his status as a famous street artists actually causes his graffiti to increase the value of a building:

I think it’s pretty clear in libertarian/propertarian terms that graffiti is in fact a crime. And it’s slightly less clear that Banksy’s schtick can be infuriatingly self-satisfied.

Interestingly, according to this lawyer’s website, the severity of the punishment for this sort of vandalism in New York depends on the economic level of damage one has done.

But Banksy-izing your property in fact, in the current art market, increases the value, so who knows how this will all pan out in either law or political philosophy if Gotham’s mayor can catch a guy whose secret identity is better protected than the Batman’s.

Back in my statist libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism days I would have decried Banksy’s actions. Today I don’t really care. Hell, I find Banksy’s art to be great. While I won’t go so far as to give the act of spray painting graffiti my blessing, I also won’t condemn the act. Furthermore, anybody who pisses off Bloomberg has to be doing something right.

With all of this said, I still have my own morals. The non-aggression principle is still something I live by. My ultimate rule in life is: don’t be a dick. I realize that my morals are not your morals and I don’t demand that you seek my blessing. However, if you want to discuss your acts of rebellion I’m more than happy to listen. So long as you’re doing something radical you’re far more interesting than everybody else.

Bloomberg’s Traveling Circus to Visit Minneapolis Tomorrow

It was brought to my attention that Michael Bloomberg’s touring circus will be in Minneapolis tomorrow:

Inspired by the Newtown school shooting, a touring national gun-control campaign endorsed by the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul stops Wednesday in downtown Minneapolis for a rally outside the federal courthouse.

Gun rights advocates are spreading the word and reviewing the legalities of showing up with their firearms.

The “No More Names” rally gets underway at 10 a.m. at the courthouse plaza at 300 S. 4th St. The signature event during the rally is when participants read the names of gun violence victims since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in December in Newtown, Conn.

The six-week-old tour is organized by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan coalition of more than 1,000 mayors that says it is the largest gun violence prevention advocacy group in the country.

I’m sure this will be the standard affair. Bloomberg’s posse will arrive, the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul will give some speeches about the dangers of gun violence, and the mayors will duck out and the truck with cruise off before any questions can be fielded. Apparently some gun owners are planning a counter-protests:

A Twin Cities gun-ownership group is advising any of its members who might attend the rally to “be peaceful and respectful” but to also “be recognizable as opposing Bloomberg’s rights-stripping, criminal mayors’ organization with clothing, hats, and/or signage.”

On its Facebook page, the Twin Cities Gun Owners & Carry Forum cautions its supporters to “watch for agitators and don’t take the bait.”

I’m not planning to attend since I have better things to do than give the time of day to a group of exploitative vultures. For those of you planning to attend I encourage you to dress professionally and speak intelligently. While the various local news organizations will happily air somebody dressed slovenly, especially if they also speak unintelligibly, they probably won’t air anybody dressed nicely, especially if they speak intelligently. When given the option between looking like a fool or being ignored it’s best to take the latter. Or you can ignore the whole circus since it’s organizers are irrelevant and undeserving of our attention.

The Tyrant of New York City Continues His Power Trip

Michael Bloomberg is famous in the gun rights community due to his zealous advocacy of gun control. As his reign in New York City continues Bloomberg’s insanity is becoming more obvious to people outside of the gun rights community. A bill was recently introduce in New York City that was supposed to curtail the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) practice of stopping people and frisking them (I’m sure it’s only coincidental that a vast majority of the individuals stopped by NYPD are people whose skin color is anything darker than off-white). Bloomberg didn’t like the idea because it got in the way of his power trip so he put the kibosh on it:

Two politically charged New York City bills to rein in the NYPD’s use of controversial stop-and-frisk tactics were vetoed Tuesday by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

He slammed both bills — one to create an NYPD inspector general and another to allow people to sue over racial profiling by cops — as a boon to criminals and terrorists.

The “dangerous and irresponsible” measures “would make New Yorkers less safe,” he wrote in his veto message.

There is some good news though:

The bills appear to have enough support in the City Council to override the mayor’s vetoes, but Bloomberg has mounted a blitz to block the racial-profiling bill, which passed with 34 votes — exactly the number needed to override a veto.

Although I wouldn’t put it past Bloomberg to arrange for one of his opponents in the City Council to have an “accident.” The man is obviously insane and as his reign comes to an end (he can’t run for mayor of New York City again unless the city’s term limit laws are changed) he’s becoming more and more unstable.

Michael Bloomberg’s Brand of Racism

Michael Bloomberg recently displayed is more, shall we say, colorful side when he complained that the New York Police Department (NYPD) was stopping too many white people and not enough minorities. No, I’m not making this up:

NEW YORK (AP) — Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday that police “disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little” as compared to murder suspects’ descriptions, sparking criticism from activists and some politicians in a city that has been immersed in a debate about law enforcement and discrimination.

Thanks to a previous lawsuit the NYPD was forced to release its numbers for its “stop and frisk” program. As it turns out many precincts were focusing almost exclusively on minority groups. Of all the persons stopped and frisked by the 73rd precinct, 98% were either Black of Hispanic.

I guess Bloomberg wants a city where minorities are stopped exclusively.

Tears of the Gun Control Movement

Now that the gun control bills have been voted down and the politicians can concentrate on exploiting the bombing in Boston to really ramp up the police state the gun control advocates are crying in their beer. Fortunately they have decided to drown their sorrows at the local watering hole instead of doing so in private, which means we get to watch them in their drunken stupor. Although I enjoy The Verge’s technology coverage their political coverage, as with most technology news sites that venture outside of technology, is rather pitiful. After the news of the gun control bills failure to pass Mr. Sottek posted this story complaining about how broken Congress must be for gun control to fail:

As The Washington Post reports, support for expanded background checks looks very different outside the halls of the Senate; a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 9 in 10 Americans favor strengthened background checks, with strong support even among NRA members and gun-owning households.

This 90% canard has been touted by gun control advocates for a while. Statistics obtained from polls are always suspect but that sentiment goes double when polls are conducted by news organizations. News organizations usually cater to a specific crowd. For example, Fox News and The Washington Times tends to cater to self-proclaimed conservatives while The Washington Post and ABC News tend to cater to self-proclaimed liberals. Since the poll was operated by The Washington Post and ABC News, who cater to gun control advocates, I’m not surprised that they found overwhelming support for prohibiting private sales (which is what is really meant by “strengthening background checks”). Had the poll been taken by Fox News and The Washington Times I’d expect the opposite result.

In addition to selection bias the claim that National Rifle Association (NRA) members strongly support ending private sales is difficult to prove with any certainty since the NRA doesn’t release its member list. Claiming gun-owning households also support ending private sales is suspect because there is no way to reliably determine if a household has guns inside. In other words the information obtained about NRA members and gun-owning households is based entirely on information that was volunteered by poll takers, which tends to be unreliable. Another point I found laughable was the following:

The failure is particularly biting for many in light of the dramatic gun violence from last December, when 20 children and six adults were murdered in Newtown, Connecticut. Despite the broad sense of national consensus that followed the Newtown tragedy, it appears that the incident did not actually change anything about gun politics in Congress.

I find it funny that The Verge, Mayor Bloomberg, and Philip Rucker spend so much time demanding gun control after a school shooting but will raise little more than a periodic murmur, if they they even raise that, when the United States government continues its terror campaign against Middle Eastern children. The lack of consistency makes me believe that they’re not really sincere about wanting to protect children. Instead it appears that they simply don’t like non-state agents owning guns. The article gets more mind numbingly stupid:

Critics of the Senate’s failure to act cite influence from special interests, namely the NRA, which has stepped up its marketing efforts in recent months as tragedies in Connecticut, Colorado, and other areas have thrust gun control into the national spotlight. As part of its outreach efforts, the NRA won a sponsorship for NASCAR which renamed the Samsung 500 to the NRA 500 this April.

First of all the NRA wasn’t the only game stepping up marketing efforts. Gabriel Giffords started her own gun control advocacy organization and Mayor Bloomberg put millions into advocating for more gun control. In addition to that the NRA didn’t “win” a NASCAR sponsorship, they bought it. I’m surprised a news organization that makes money off of advertising doesn’t understand that sponsorships, another word for advertisements, aren’t won in competitions but purchased with money.

While politics seldom interests me anymore I find the reactions of gun control advocates, who do put their faith in the political process, rather entertaining after they lose. They whine that everybody supports their cause but Congress won’t obey the will of the people. In actuality the issue of gun control is hotly debated and Congress would rather expand its powers in less troublesome ways. Why waste time riling the serfs up by pushing gun control when you can offer buisnesses a lucrative deal where they can sell their customers’ information to the state without worrying about legal repercussions? Less people get riled up about expanding the surveillance state and it nets the state more power. Congress doesn’t obey the will of the people, it grabs for power over the people. Gun control gives them some power but there are much better ways of obtaining more power that involve less headaches. The reason gun control advocates haven’t achieved many victories as of late is because they aren’t offering Congress much of value. Like sponsorships, Congressional victories aren’t won, they’re bought.

Judge Blocks New York City’s Ban on Large Sugary Drinks

A judge has blocked Mayor Bloomberg’s ban on large sugary drinks. That in of itself isn’t overly interesting in my opinion, Bloomberg’s reaction is:

Mayor Bloomberg responded to the ruling by telling a news conference: “We think the judge is totally in error in the way he interpreted the law and we are very confident that we will win on appeal.

“One of the cases we will make is that people are dying every day. This is not a joke. Five thousand people die of obesity every day in America,” he added.

The ban would prohibit places like restaurants and movie theaters from selling soda containers exceeding 16oz. of capacity. Bloomberg claims that obesity kills over 5,000 people a day and his proposal to prevent it is to make patrons of movie theaters and restaurants buy two smaller drinks instead of one large drink. Making the situation more laughable is the fact that two 16oz. drinks will contain more sugar than one 20oz. drink. It seems that Bloomberg hasn’t thought his master plan all the way through.

NYPD to Begin Deploying Terahertz Scanners to Detect Carried Firearms

Earlier this year New York City’s so-called “stop and frisk” policy, which involved police officers stopping random serfs and frisking them without evidence of wrongdoing, was ruled unconstitutional. Now that the ruling has had some time to sink in we can look at what has changed for those living in New York City. First a judge decided to lift the ban on “stop and frisk” making the ruling entirely irrelevant. In addition to being allowed to resume “stoping and frisking” the New York Police Department (NYPD) is also deploying terahertz scanners to detect if individuals are carrying firearms:

Get ready for scan-and-frisk.

The NYPD will soon deploy new technology allowing police to detect guns carried by criminals without using the typical pat-down procedure, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday.

The department just received a machine that reads terahertz — the natural energy emitted by people and inanimate objects — and allows police to view concealed weapons from a distance.

“If something is obstructing the flow of that radiation, for example a weapon, the device will highlight that object,” Kelly said.

A tip of the hat goes to Paul Blincow for e-mailing me this story.

I briefly discussed these scanners, and their health effects, last year. It seems that the NYPD was merely looking for an excuse, such as a court ruling against “stop and frisk,” to justify the purchase and deployment of these potential DNA shredders. Of course it’s all being done in the name of disarming the slaves safety.

Shooting in New York City Demonstrates the Futility of Gun Control… Again

New York City is known for its rather stringent gun control laws. This isn’t surprising since the city is ruled by Michael Bloomberg who also heads Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), an organization dedicated to the abolition of private firearm ownership. While Bloomberg and MAIG constantly parrot about the need for stricter gun control laws, New York City continues to suffer from shootings. Yesterday a man was fatally shot in Central Park:

The shooting happened shortly before 14:00 EST (19:00 GMT), when an unidentified man opened fire at the corner of 58th and 7th Avenue.

The gunman fled by jumping into the passenger seat of a waiting vehicle that drove away, US media reports said.

Officials say the 31-year-old victim was brought to St Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The shooting took place in a busy area of Manhattan not known for shootings or crime.

It happened close to Central Park and high-profile shops, as well as the Time Warner building, home of CNN’s New York studios.

From the facts currently being reported (which are always subject to change) it appears as though the shooting was a hit job. Regardless of the shooter’s motivations this event demonstrates once again that gun control is a futile pursuit. Even with very strict gun control laws New York City suffers from multiple firearms-related homicides at year. To make matters worse getting a carry permit in the city is almost impossible unless you are wealthy or politically well-connected. Restricting access to carry permits lowers the cost of committing violence, which increases the likelihood of violent crime occurring.