No wonder these mayors are against gun ownership

Gun control advocates were on Capitol Hill Tuesday afternoon to ask members of Congress to pass legislation that would tighten gun-buying restrictions. It was part of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns campaign, led by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Tom Menino, to make it more difficult for convicted criminals and people found mentally ill from purchasing guns.—Governing.com

Founded in 2006 with 15 mayors at its core, including former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, Mayors Against Illegal Guns has become a powerful voice in the gun prohibition movement, while hardly uttering a squeak about some of its own members who have run afoul of the law.

It might be argued that Nickels violated state law when he unsuccessfully imposed a ban on legally-carried firearms in Seattle city park facilities, after being advised by State Attorney General Rob McKenna that the ban was illegal. It took a court challenge led by the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the National Rifle Association, to make it official, as this column reported.

But what Nickels did is insignificant compared to other members of the organization, spearheaded by anti-gun New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. Look them up here, and here, and you find enough examples of corruption in government to raise suspicions that it might be better to require background checks for mayoral candidates than would-be gun buyers. For example:

·         Former Detroit, MI Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. His political career came to a train wreck halt when he pleaded guilty to a pair of felony obstruction charges (he was trying to hide an extramarital affair), and pleading no contest to an assault charge against the cop who was serving a subpoena on a friend of Kilpatrick’s.

·         Eddie Alberto Perez, the first Hispanic mayor of Hartford, CT pulled a three-year prison sentence “for accepting deeply discounted home repairs and trying to extort a payoff on behalf of a political ally,” according to the Hartford Courant.

·         Birmingham, AL Mayor Larry Langford was automatically removed from office last year when he was convicted on 60 counts of federal corruption, which included charges of bribery and money laundering.

·         Gary Becker was the mayor of Racine, WI when he was indicted on five felony counts for child pornography, child enticement and attempted child sexual assault, according to various accounts. He pulled a three-year prison sentence.

·         Former Guttenberg, NJ Mayor David Delle Donna and his wife both pulled prison sentences of more than four years in prison after being convicted for tax evasion and extortion.

During Wednesday’s floor debate on the National Right to Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011, which this column discussed, Congressman John Conyers and Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz both noted that this legislation is opposed by the Mayors group. Considering the criminal activity of some of its members, maybe it’s no wonder why these folks want to disarm the public.

Perhaps the most curious aspect of these and other cases involving mayors of big cities and small towns is that they enter into these activities with some kind of notion that they’re not going to get caught.

There is no small irony in noting that convictions such as these carry a lifetime loss of Second Amendment rights.

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