Bloomberg online gun sting creates more questions than answers

“Probe Finds Illegal Gun Web,” The Wall Street Journal reports. And behind the probe is a familiar anti-gun figure:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who in 2006 launched a national campaign to combat illegal guns, authorized the city to hire licensed private investigators to go undercover and purchase guns via Internet listings.

Naturally, the “Authorized Journalists” are behind him. From a consistent ally in citizen disarmament, the New York Daily News:

Mayor Bloomberg rightly takes aim at online gun sales

All you need know about their mindset and the chance for a fair analysis:

Now, amid a presidential race, the gun crazies are in full, insane command.

So Bloomberg has financed another sting in other states—that is, the taxpayers of his fiefdom have. Except this time, it’s not gun dealers he’s trying to ruin, it’s private sellers. And it’s in states that haven’t threatened him with criminal prosecution if he tries his antics there, like Virginia (which explains why he then turned around and used his warchest for political revenge).

So much for the claim of anti-gunners that we need “home rule.” That’s just code for they want to rule your home, anyway.

And that’s the case with this latest publicity stunt, one that at least takes the mask off the lie that the anti-self-defense lobby wants to close a mythical “gun show loophole”—their true (immediate) goal is to end all private sales, and use that as the beachhead from which to launch their next assault.

To coordinate this latest campaign, Bloomberg and his disproportionately criminal Mayors Against Illegal Guns (keep in mind he would like for them all to be “illegal”—except for those under his control) have launched a "Delete Online Outlaws" page to their Fix Gun Checks website, where they share recorded results of staged "undercover operations." On the surface, theirs videos look damning. On closer examination we see we’re not being treated free of subtle manipulation.

Case in point: The very first video title in the lineup tells us “Ohio Seller on ArmsList.com Sells Assault Rifle.” The thing is, it involves a Ruger Mini-14, a rifle not included in the federal 1994 “assault weapons” ban (and that exemption, incidentally, caused no small amount of controversy among gun rights activists). No matter—to the antis, they’re all “assault weapons.” Unless they’re magically transmuted into “patrol rifles” by virtue of who controls them.

And as for the sellers caught on video, we don’t have information to know if they’re just ordinary people who are ignorant, or if any of them are…criminals. In one clip, where the fake buyer says he probably couldn’t pass a background check, the seller laughs and says he probably couldn’t either. Which leads us to the jaw-dropping conclusion that criminals don’t obey the law! In Ohio, in Texas, or in New York City.

Does anyone seriously think an investigator couldn’t make and record street buys there, in spite of all the edicts commanding otherwise? And that Bloomberg’s Finest wouldn’t ruin the life of anyone trying to set up and record a reverse exposé?

So what do these “gotcha” stunts really prove?

For one thing, they prove a man desperate to control others with a single-minded fanaticism, and everyone else be damned. Another case in point to illustrate—look at the goals Bloomberg and his group are calling for:

Registration of all sellers—it’s not like we haven‘t already seen how New York City misuses that information.
Registration of buyers BEFORE THEY CAN EVEN CONTACT THE SELLERS. No transaction needs take place—Bloomberg demands to know who’s inquiring. Like we don’t have an absolute right to talk to any damn person we feel like, about any damn thing we please, any damn time we feel like it, and he doesn’t have a damn say in any of that. Well, why should someone who spits on the Second Amendment care about the First?
“Provide a simple mechanism to flag suspicious behavior in gun sales”: Bloomberg’s Inspector Clouseau solution---he suspects everyone and he suspects no one. I'm just waiting for him tell a blind beggar that his minkey is breaking the leu.

If he can force these requirements on internet transactions, does anyone think he’ll be content to stop there?

And does anyone think that any of this nonsense will have any effect whatsoever on the violent criminal underclass spawned and adapted to flourish in the by-design environment Bloomberg and his political cartel counterparts at the state and federal level rely on?

Also see:

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