BELLEVUE, WA –-(Ammoland.com)- The Second Amendment Foundation today has filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request with the City of New York for all records relating to Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, after newspaper allegations that city resources have been used for MAIG’s gun control efforts.
SAF is being joined in the request by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and Tom Gresham, host of the nationally-syndicated “Gun Talk.”
“It was bad enough to learn via CBS News that the MAIG website was being hosted on a city-owned server, and administered by city employees,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb, “but it also appears that a special counselor in the mayor’s office was sent to lobby in Nevada on behalf of MAIG’s gun control agenda.”
The New York Post and Politico both published reports that Mayor Bloomberg sent Christopher Kocher to Nevada, and that in an apparent attempt to conceal who he worked for, Kocher “scrubbed his City Hall e-mail address from the state of Nevada lobbying-registration Web site early this month.”
“The public has a right to know what’s been going on between Bloomberg, the city and MAIG,” Gottlieb explained. “Gun control is Bloomberg’s pet peeve, and he’s been pushing an anti-gun agenda since sending so-called private investigators on a sting operation to gun shops all over the country, which got him in trouble with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.”
“There certainly appears to be a serious problem in Bloomberg’s administration,” Gresham added. “Evidently, the mayor and his staff have a gross misunderstanding of how the taxpayers’ money should be spent, and that should not include sending New York employees around the country to lobby for Bloomberg’s pet projects.”
The request was filed by SAF Special Projects Director Philip Watson, for the following information:
- 1. All electronic records related to Mayors Against Illegal Guns and the website MayorsAgainstIllegalGuns.org, including, but not limited to:
- a. All electronic files saved on city servers
- b. All Emails to or from users at the domain MayorsAgainstIllegalGuns.org
- c. All current and former employees, officials, outside contractors, and volunteers with access to the website MayorsAgainstIllegalGuns.org
- d. All current and former Email users and usernames that have had access to send or receive Email from @MayorsAgainstIllegalGuns.org
- 2. Any and all records related to Mayors Against Illegal Guns electronic files, including, but not limited to:
- a. Emails
- b. Any written documents
- c. Any records describing processes for cooperation with this group
- d. Any records describing how received communications with this group are processed
- e. All employee pay or overtime related to cooperation or time spent with this group
- f. Official names, titles, and contact information of all employees, officials, outside contractors, and volunteers involved with domain hosting, creation, maintenance, and communication for MayorsAgainstIllegalGuns.org
- g. All costs incurred by the City of New York for creation, maintenance, domain hosting, and communication for MayorsAgainstIllegalGuns.org
- 3. Any and all records of communication since January 1, 2002 between any city official, employee, or volunteer and any gun control advocacy organization, including, but not limited to:
- a. Mayors Against Illegal Guns
- b. Demand A Plan
- c. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
- d. Center for Gun Policy and Research
- e. Ceasefire
- f. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
- g. Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
- h. Joyce Foundation
- i. Violence Policy Center
- j. Legal Community Against Violence
- k. Million Mom March
“The man is obsessed,” Gottlieb continued, “and if he’s spent so much as a dime of public money on what amounts to a private crusade, Mayor Bloomberg needs to be held accountable for that.”
Gottlieb has called on New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to launch a full-scale investigation into the mayor’s potential misuse of public resources for his own private war on gun owners. He renewed that call today.
“If Eric Schneiderman won’t investigate Bloomberg for possible misuse of public funds,” Gottlieb said, “we will. The mayor has been acting increasingly like a self-appointed monarch, but this still the United States, not Bloomberg’s personal fiefdom.”
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.
@Bill Butler: Wouldn’t that be the Holder/Wiener, or Wiener Holder. Hmm sounds bad, how bout Hold yer wiener. Shoot, still bad.
Weiner and Holder for President in 2016! it will be the Weiner/Holder campaign. I can hardly wait for the posters!
Why hasn’t Bloomberg been arrested & EXECUTED yet?
WTF???
I spent the first half of my 80 yrs. growing up in Brooklyn, NY and loved it!. I now live in Texas since Uncle Sam sent me here; I stayed and after 40 yrs. finally consider myself to be a Texan and a “former” New Yorker. Today’s NYC and NY State are totally not what they were in my day. What happened to the ‘moxey’ people? What happened to the people who stood up for themselves? What happened to the spirit that was uniquely Brooklyn’s? Now the people allow them selves to live under and be pushed around by a… Read more »
Great Job Alan! Keep up the fight, America needs more people like Alan to give the Anti-gun wacko’s/Communist heathen’s a fight and keep them looking behind too cover up thier deceptions.
it’s evident that bloomberg considers new york city as his private fiefdom, and himself a fuedal lord, not accountable to his serfs and peasants. it’s high time someone lays siege to his castle and knocks him off his high seat. we did away with “lords and masters” back in 1776 in this country, and we do not need kipling’s “old issue” coming around again.
He’s a little piss pot with lots of cash…OH-HUM!
I wish the SAF much success. Unfortunately, this runt of a man has some deep pockets.
Good work Alan
Is this creep a dual citizen of the State of Israel? If so, is it their disarmament policy that he is pushing? Inquiring minds would like to know!
Bloomberg is a very bad mayor of n.y.c. use the money for raises for city workers who haven’t got a raise in about six years. STOP wasting city money use it right..
I wish this guy would do something positive for a change like have a heart attack or step in front of a speeding bus.
They should also request info regarding whether the lobbyist received a paycheck from NYC while in NV on behalf of MAIG. I would bet that it’s not the only time this has happened, either…